Word: tokyo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Everything was set for the long-delayed opening-five years late-of Japan's sparkling $2.4 billion New Tokyo International Airport at Narita, 40 miles northeast of the capital. The 114 shops and restaurants and nine banks in the terminal complex were polished and ready for business. The 32 airlines that would use the new facility prepared to switch 150 flights a day from older, overtaxed Haneda airport across Tokyo Bay. In a nation where tradition and superstition still count as much as technology, a taian, or auspicious day, had even been determined for the dedication last week...
...Tokyo, the dollar hit a new low of 231.40 Japanese yen. Alarmed by the trend, which makes Japanese exports more expensive, the Tokyo government forbade sale of short-term Japanese bonds to foreigners and cut the central bank interest rate to 3.5%, the lowest since 1946. Those measures failed to keep dollars from pouring into Japan, so the Bank of Japan bought up $500 million of greenbacks offered for sale. That did not prop the price, and at one point the dollar broke the 230-barrier on some exchanges...
...what they consider a one-sided Japanese attitude on trade. While exporting furiously, the Japanese have put imported products through a thicket of protective tariffs and a maze of nontariff barriers ranging from quotas to stringent labeling requirements. One result: a GE refrigerator sells for $2,075 in Tokyo, compared with $1,289 in New York City. Little wonder, then, that many U.S. companies saw no point in even trying to crack the Japanese market...
There are some signs, though, that tough behind-the-scenes talk by officials of the Carter Administration is starting to bring change. At American urging, Tokyo this month dispatched a 91-man delegation of corporate and government officials to tour the U.S., actively seeking, and signing orders for, more imports. Last week the mission fanned out from San Francisco to a score of cities to talk up a new liberalism in trade. In a flight of wish-it-were-true hyperbole, Delegation Chief Yoshizo Ikeda, president of Mitsui, the giant trading company, told a gathering in Atlanta that his country...
American salesmen might be pardoned for awaiting proof that the Japanese are really interested in importing. Japan has slashed tariffs this year on 318 items, but the U.S. regards the nontariff barriers as more important. On them, there have been only two small signs of give. Tokyo has liberalized financing terms for imports, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry has ordered a study on how to simplify import documentation and inspection procedures...