The United States renewed calls on Japan to eliminate the Large-Scale Retail Store Law and other obstacles blocking the penetration of foreign products into the Japanese market, Japanese government officials said Sept. 12.

A U.S. delegation made the request during three-day talks that ended Sept. 12. The meeting was held under the framework of the Enhanced Initiative on Deregulation and Competition Policy, which was agreed to by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton at the Denver summit in June.

The two sides agreed to work out a schedule for a higher level of dialogue within the framework later this fall, according to the officials. Preceding that meeting, Japan and the U.S. are expected to hold separate expert-level talks on telecommunications, housing, medical devices, pharmaceuticals and financial services, all of which fall under the enhanced initiative umbrella.

In its statement released Sept. 12, the U.S. said it expects to see "concrete measures that Japan will adopt to increase market access" spelled out when the two leaders meet at the Birmingham summit next year. During the three-day meeting, the U.S. side also called on Japan to step up and improve competition law enforcement, suggesting that the existing Japanese law may be too lenient to efficiently prevent illegal business practices such as "dango" bid-rigging among constructors.

Meanwhile, the Japanese side called for greater transparency in setting dumping charges, in reference to the ongoing controversy concerning dumping charges on NEC Corp.'s supercomputers. The U.S. side, however, said that both the dumping procedures and the NEC case are not appropriate for talks under the framework, according to the Japanese officials.