Japan and the United States held "sincere and constructive" discussions Sept. 9 on extending a bilateral accord on procurement by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., government officials from both sides said.
The two sides agreed to hold another working level meeting in Washington later this month to reach a definite conclusion by Sept. 30, when the existing agreement is due to expire, they said. However, subtle differences appear to remain concerning the kinds of conclusions they hope to reach then.
During the meeting, the two sides put forward their proposals for improving the existing agreement, and neither side brought up the possibility of terminating it. The U.S. delegation was headed by Byron Sigel, deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, while Koji Tsuruoka, chief of the Foreign Ministry's Second North America Division, represented Japan. A representative of NTT also attended.