November 2, 2001	Friday	Shaba’an 15, 1422

BEIJING, Nov 1: China and Japan on Thursday ended one day of talks in Beijing without reaching a solution to a dragging trade dispute over tit-for-tat import restrictions.

Officials engaged in a “constructive, meaningful dialogue” and agreed to hold a new meeting at the earliest convenient date, possibly next week in Tokyo, Japanese negotiators said.

Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said after the talks that the two countries’ officials had encountered areas where they disagreed.

But yet at least we have been trying to find out what is the most appropriate solution to this question, he said at a briefing.

The meeting tentatively scheduled for next week in Japan will involve representatives of private-sector exporters, Japanese officials said.

The dispute began in April when Japan invoked emergency import restrictions on three farm products, spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and rushes used in traditional tatami mats.

The cheap imports came mostly come from China and were alleged to be hurting Japanese producers.

The new restrictions prompted Beijing to retaliate in June by imposing 100 per cent punitive tariffs on imports of Japanese motor vehicles, air conditioners and mobile phones.

Analysts said at the time the Japanese decision was motivated by a desire to win political support from agricultural interests ahead of parliamentary elections in July.

Thursday’s meeting took place against the backdrop of two recent visits to China by Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Koizumi made a one-day trip to Beijing on October 8, followed later in the month by his attendance at the summit of the 21-member APEC forum in Shanghai.

There is a kind of better political relationship between the two countries, Tanaka said. That is probably the general background of the constructive meeting we had today.

The omens for Thursday’s talks seemed less than ideal from the outset, with Chinese state media citing unnamed “experts” as predicting it was unlikely they would bear fruit.

Officials attending the talks were considered too junior to be able to properly sort out the issues, the China Daily said.

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s parliament has passed legislation required to allow the island’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO), parliamentary officials said on Thursday.

Lawmakers passed 14 bills Tuesday and Wednesday to comply with WTO rules before Parliament went into recess, an official said.

The amended laws will cut import tariffs, allow foreign lawyers and accountants to practice here, open local air cargo and construction business to foreign investment, and impose severe punishments for compact disc piracy, officials said.

Passage of the bills was part of Taiwan’s commitments to promote free trade as a member of the global trade body, they added.

The WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar next week is expected to approve Taiwan’s entry immediately after the accession of China.

Parliamentarians will convene an extraordinary session on November 16, to ratify Taiwan’s admission documents, they said. The government has said it expects the accession process to be finished by early next year.—AFP