Japan will not impose safeguard tariffs on towels imported from China for the time being, trade minister Takeo Hiranuma said Friday.

The government will, however, extend an ongoing investigation by six months due to sharp increases in towel imports in recent months, Hiranuma said.

"We are not in a position to exercise safeguard measures at the moment, but we need to closely observe the trend," Hiranuma said at a news conference, referring to increases of more than 10 percent in towels from China in the three months to February.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been examining whether Japan should impose safeguard tariffs on Chinese towel imports since April 2001. This is the fourth extension of the investigation. The last extension was in October.

Hiranuma said the pace of the increase has slowed recently. It stood at 15.4 percent in 2000, 6.3 percent in 2001 and 4.7 percent in 2002.

He said he plans to ask a METI Industrial Structure Council subcommittee to look into the matter.

METI will take three steps to deal with the challenges Japan's struggling towel industry faces, he said. One is to hold regular working-level governmental meetings between Japan and China to discuss textile trade.

METI will also try harder to crack down on fraudulent labeling and copyright infringements in terms of registered designs, Hiranuma said, adding the ministry will support structural reforms to small and midsize firms in the textile industry.