Japan will open up a segment of its insurance market to Japanese firms in January 2001 as planned, government officials reaffirmed Thursday.

The comments came following one-day bilateral talks in Tokyo with the United States on insurance services.

U.S. government officials have strongly opposed the planned liberalization in the past because they believed Japan was blocking foreign insurers' activity in other sectors of the insurance market.

But during Thursday's meeting, U.S. officials said they were not going to discuss the issue in the talks, Japanese officials said.

This attitude on the U.S. side may be taken as an effective approval of Japan's planned deregulation, the most troublesome issue during bilateral talks in June 1998, which resulted in severe disagreements.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comments. No schedule was set for subsequent talks, Japanese officials said.

The regular working-level meeting, the first of its kind since April, was called to follow up developments in the two countries under the 1994 and 1996 agreements.

The 1996 agreement restricts Japanese insurers' sales of products offering coverage of accidents or diseases such as cancer. American insurers have strength in this "third sector" gray zone between primary life and nonlife insurance in Japan.

But Tokyo has consistently claimed that it fully liberalized the "primary sector" in July 1998, a condition under the deal to open up the third sector to Japanese firms.

Washington was urging Japan, at least as of 1998, to continue restricting the entry of Japanese insurers into the third-sector market.

The Japanese negotiators included representatives from the Foreign Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Financial Supervisory Agency. Their U.S. counterparts were from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Commerce Department and supervisory authorities for insurers.