Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is currently visiting Japan at the official invitation of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. I suppose that one of the aims of his visit is to ask Japan to begin a joint study with Chile on the possibility of a free trade agreement, or FTA, between Japan and Chile. I say, why not? In November 1999, Gabriel Valdes, then-Chilean minister of foreign affairs, visited the Japan External Trade Organization when I was its chairman and proposed that JETRO and the Chilean Foreign Ministry conduct a joint study on a Chile-Japan FTA.