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The Highlight of Japan's IAP

Japan's IAP shows in a comprehensive manner the actions based on the OAA which was formulated in order to implement the Bogor Declaration.

Around the core of trade facilitation, Japan is actively undertaking a number of measures, under the current socio-economic reform that Japan is going through. Japan's revised IAP reflects these measures.

In the revision process, we welcomed the comments from other member economies to our IAP, collected and conveyed the voices of private/business sector, and actively conducted the consultations with other members. We tried to incorporate these voices in our revised IAP.

The main points of our IAP are as follows.

1. Deregulation and rationalisation for trade and investment facilitation

Japanese government is planning a wide-ranging reform and actively pursuing deregulation in order to realize a free and fair economic society that is open to the world and based on the self-responsibility and market principles. The main measures that are in our IAP of this year are as follows.

(1) Facilitation of trans-border flow of goods and services and of business mobility

  • Japan will align JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard), JAS (Japanese Agricultural Standard) and technical regulations under the Electrical Appliance and Material Control Law more closely with international standards.
  • Japan will review the structure of regulations in the Building Standard Law with a view to shifting to stipulating performance regulations; and formulation of a new systematic framework.
  • Japan will work to expand the number of FTOs (Foreign Testing Organizations) on the basis of requests from abroad.
  • Japan will expand the flexibility of labeling methods by the Household Goods Quality Labeling Law. (Implementation from 1997 in order)
  • Japan improve efficiency of animal quarantine, focused on infectious diseases with high risk.
  • Japan will further facilitate simplification and harmonization of customs procedures through such measures as computerization and simplified declaration.
  • Completely liberalize interconnection of international private leased circuit with public switched telecommunications networks.
  • Concerning foreign investment in the mining industry, the current arrangement obligating prior notification will be lifted to require only ex post fact reporting by amending the Foreign Exchange Control Law.
  • Take measures for necessary revision of the law governing the legal practices in Japan by "gaikokuho-jimu-bengoshi", based on the report of the study group on the system of accepting foreign lawyers. (FY1997)
  • The length of validity of the APEC business visa will be extended from 3 years to 5 years (as of January 1, 1998).
  • Revise Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law in order to introduce to Japan global standards on external transactions and to further vitalise our market by complete liberalisation of the foreign exchange business.
  • Abolishing the system under which the certificate of gasoline supplier is required for registration of new service stations.(FY1997)
  • An expedited procedure was introduced with a view to resolving small claim disputes expeditiously.(1997)

(2)Improvements on business environment and facilitation of business

  • Reorganising the NTT by revising the NTT Law.(1999)
  • Within the framework of the INGECEP/CyberNet (Integrated Next Generation Electronic Commerce Environment Project), establish connections with domestic and overseas virtual shopping malls while providing access to the customers of those malls mutually (planned for April 1998).
  • Implement verification experiments with interconnection among many companies of member economies within the framework of the APEC EDI Pilot Project, draft the guidelines on Internet / EDI based on the outcomes of such experiments, as well as further strengthen international partnership and launch joint projects of electronic commerce between companies and consumers.
  • Japan is undertaking a number of engineer trainings and collaborative researches and developments with various APEC members on network interconnection technologies and application technologies, utilising the APII Technology Center.
  • Japan will undertake such measures as strengthening the structure of the Fair Trade Commission for more vigorous implementation of competition policy.
  • Japan will review exemption systems of cartels and others from the application of the Antimonopoly Act.
  • The system for notification of mergers, and acquisition of businesses, etc., the system for reporting of stock holdings, and the system for notification of interlocking directorates will be reviewed from such viewpoints as the fundamental reasoning and purpose of the systems, easing the burden of requirements on companies, ensuring harmonization with international standards, etc.
  • The Japanese Patent Office (JPO) aims at reducing the period of the first official action 12 months from the date of the request for examination for patent or from the filing date for trademark and industrial design toward 2000.
  • Consideration on the revision of the Design Law to accommodate industrial design protections to globalization.
  • Provisions under the Patent Law related to criteria for evaluating damages awards against intellectual property rights infringement are under review since the amount of damages awards is considered too low.
  • Liberalization of brokerage commission. (Sale price on more than 0.5 billion yen will be liberalized in April 1998. Complete liberalizaion by the end of 1999.)
  • The Copyright Law was revised in 1997 to establish the new right of "making transmittable (available)" of authors, performers and phonogram producers in addition to the pre-existing right of "interactive transmission" of authors.

2. Action toward the achievement of "Free and Open Trade and Investment"

  • Japan firmly commits to strengthening the multilateral trading system. In this regard, Japan expanded, based on the results of the review on the Tariff Elimination Initiative on pharmaceuticals, the number of tariff lines covered by the Initiative by 464 products as from July 1997, and implemented the first tariff reduction on information technology equipment in accordance with the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) in July 1997 (as for information technology equipment, the tariff will be eliminated no later than 1 January 2000).
  • The bill for the revision of the Telecommunications Business Law and the Radio Law was enacted which will abolish the limitations on foreign capital participation in all Type I telecommunications carriers (except for NTT and KDD), including the ones for radio licenses.
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