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Report
No.240804 |
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- International - |
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Japan-Australia Summit Meeting Decides to Give Consideration to Difficult Issues -EPA Negotiations Likely to be Protracted- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting at the Prime Minister's official residence on March 13 with Australia's Prime Minister John Howard during his visit to Japan. They agreed to advance the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiation between Japan and Australia that will start on April 23. The prime ministers also shared the view that both nations should conduct the negotiation with giving considerations to politically difficult issues each other. At the meeting, Prime Minister Abe pointed out the importance of agriculture, saying that the agriculture, far beyond being just an industry, has multifunctionality including the conservation of environment/land, culture and tradition. Additionally, he stressed that efforts should be exerted to realize mutual benefits with the recognition of importance of the agriculture. While agreeing there were certain sensitive agricultural products, Prime Minister Howard told that they had to determine through the discussion (during the negotiation) if there were any gap between actual impacts (on the sensitive products) and their recognition. This is the reiteration of the Australia's usual position that all the items should be put on the table for the negotiation and that the impact of lifting tariff for the sensitive products has to be discussed during the negotiation. At a joint press conference after the meeting, Prime Minister Howard referred to the possible prolonged negotiation, saying that it would be a longer negotiation. With regard to the EPA between Japan and Australia, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries expects that the elimination of the tariff for the sensitive products will decrease the production by around 800 billion yen only for wheat, sugar, dairy products and beef. Therefore, the Japanese government will aim at the exclusion of the sensitive items from a list of products for tariff elimination during the negotiation. Excerpt from article in the Japan Agricultural News on March 14 |
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