
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 7, 1995                   TAG: 9509070061
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

U.S. TO TRACK CAR SALES TO BE SURE TRADE PACT WORKS

The Clinton administration put forward a detailed program Wednesday aimed at closely tracking whether a trade agreement with Japan is increasing sales of American-made cars and auto parts.

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said the administration would use his office and four Cabinet departments to assemble sales figures from a number of sources.

He said these figures would be used to produce a report every six months tracking Japanese compliance with the deal.

But Japanese officials immediately criticized the proposal as a unilateral attempt on the part of the United States to impose numerical sales targets that are not contained in the agreement, reached in last-minute bargaining on June 28.

The administration is seeking to narrow America's $66 billion annual trade deficit with Japan, more than half of it in the automotive sector.

Even though the agreement itself does not have specific targets, the administration said when the program was announced that it would use its own projections of sales increases based on business plans announced at the same time by the five Japanese automakers.

A spokesman for the Japanese Embassy took issue with the administration's claims, saying that the target figures are not enforceable.

by CNB