Japan and the United States will hold working-level insurance talks during the week of April 12 to follow up on their 1996 bilateral agreement, but Tokyo does not intend to delay its plan to liberalize the so-called third sector in 2001, Vice Finance Minister Koji Tanami said Thursday.
The third sector is where American insurers have strength in such products as cancer insurance. Since June, the Japanese government has been claiming that it has fulfilled all the conditions of the 1996 agreement, the prerequisite for opening the third sector to Japanese insurers.
The U.S. has insisted Japan delay third-sector liberalization because it has not yet sufficiently deregulated the primary insurance sector, which includes life insurance.
The last bilateral talks, held in June, ended with the disagreements unresolved.
The agenda for the April talks could include reformation of insurance rating organizations and the product-approval process in Japan.
For the U.S. market, varying regulation standards among states and may be discussed in addition to other regulations, Tanami said.