The Japan-U.S. Business Conference ended Tuesday, with business leaders from the two nations adopting a statement urging a "substantial and prompt reduction in interconnection rates" charged by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group.
Mitsubishi Corp. Chairman Minoru Makihara and AT&T Chairman and CEO Michael Armstrong, who jointly chaired the three-day event in Tokyo, were to submit the statement to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori later in the day.
The conference coincided with the ongoing deregulation talks between U.S. and Japanese government officials, who are locking horns in Tokyo over how much NTT's access charges should be lowered to promote competition in Japan's telecommunications network market.