Tokyo, Jan. 22 (Jiji Press)--Japan Business Federation Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura said Tuesday that Japan should join Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks by May. 

If substantive TPP negotiations, now among 11 countries including the United States, are supposed to end in October, Japan has to join the talks in May at the latest, Yonekura told reporters after a meeting between senior officials of the business group known as Keidanren and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Japan needs to express its intention by early February to join the talks for the country to participate as Yonekura sought before LDP executives including Vice President Masahiko Komura and Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba.

Procedures in the United States require at least 90 days for its permission to allow a new country to join the negotiations.

Ishiba told reporters that LDP and Keidanren officials had discussions on the TPP but that "this does not mean a direction has been set."

January 22, 2013

Source: Jiji Press

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