When Japan introduced a controversial tariff scheme for its rice imports in April 1999, it was like a train departing before all passengers were on board.

Although Japan has kept the new scheme running under domestic laws, it has so far failed to officially get the green light from the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based watchdog on global commerce, because of objections from some agriculture-exporting countries.

But the two-year-old scheme -- under which prohibitively high import duties were imposed on foreign rice to protect politically powerful domestic growers -- is finally expected to be recognized by the international trading community as a legal trading regime this spring, according to government sources.

The breakthrough came after Uruguay, the only remaining die-hard opponent, recently stopped firing salvos and formally dropped its objection, the sources said.

The WTO secretariat has already issued a letter confirming all 140 WTO members have approved the Japanese scheme, the sources said.

Procedurally, both the government and the Diet must also approve the WTO letter before the scheme is formally registered with the WTO as an internationally legal regime. The government plans to submit the WTO letter to the current ordinary Diet session for endorsement after approving it at a Cabinet meeting early next month, the sources said.

At the end of 1998, Japan decided to introduce the tariff scheme for rice imports to replace the previous import-quota regime. The European Union, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay lodged objections with the WTO over the decision, claiming the scheme's tariff rates were excessive and would shut their products out of the Japanese market.

Under a 1980 decision by the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, any WTO member can raise objections to changes in another member's tariff policy within three months of the change being reported to the WTO secretariat.

Despite the objections, Japan went ahead with the new rice policy without the WTO's formal recognition.

In fiscal 1999, tariffs of about 351 yen per kg were levied. If calculated on the basis of prices instead of volumes, these tariffs were nearly 1,000 percent. The rice import duties were lowered -- albeit still prohibitively high -- to about 341 yen per kg for fiscal 2000 and beyond.

The EU, Australia and Argentina dropped their objections to the tariff scheme soon after it was introduced. Uruguay, which exports about 5,000 tons of rice to Japan annually, only followed suit after strong persuasion from Tokyo, the sources said.

Technically, the new scheme liberalized Japan's politically sensitive rice market but in reality the heavy tariffs have priced foreign rice -- except rice imported under the so-called minimum access deal -- out of the nearly 10 million ton market.

The minimum access deal, a compromise between Japan and its trade partners following Japan's refusal to accept a tariff scheme for rice imports, was struck at the end of 1993 during the GATT-sponsored Uruguay Round of global trade negotiations.

The deal obliged Japan to import foreign rice equal to 4 percent of the country's consumption in fiscal 1995 and to gradually raise this, at an annual rate of 0.8 percentage point, to 8 percent in fiscal 2000.

But the introduction of the tariff scheme in fiscal 1999 allowed Japan to raise this level by only 0.4 percentage point during that year and fiscal 2000, bringing the market share guaranteed for imported rice to 7.2 percent for fiscal 2000.

Rice imported under the minimum access deal is used for food processing, livestock feeding and in food aid for developing countries, including communist North Korea, with which Japan has yet to establish diplomatic ties.

The import quota system has led to a slow but steady rise in imported rice, putting pressure on domestic growers, who have seen production surpluses in recent years. At the end of 1998, they accepted the government's tariff scheme, realizing it would be more effective in protecting themselves from foreign competition.

But domestic rice growers will not be able to continue getting the relief much longer. Japan will almost certainly face strong pressure to lower tariffs for rice during the next round of WTO trade negotiations.

The new WTO round was to be launched in early 2000, but is yet to be inaugurated due to the collapse of the key WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in early December 1999.

At that meeting, WTO members failed to set a specific agenda for the next round, due to sharp differences over labor protection, antidumping and other issues. However, WTO negotiations on the so-called built-in agenda of farm and services trade are under way in Geneva, though not on a full-scale basis.

In the last round of WTO negotiations on agriculture held earlier this month, Japan faced a barrage of fierce attacks from agriculture-exporting countries for its resistance to liberalizing the farming sector.

Japan has proposed that the "multifunctional" roles of agriculture, a term the government coined in an attempt to link farm trade to the environment and food security, be fully taken into account when negotiating further liberalization. It has even called for lowering the market share it must guarantee for foreign rice under the minimum access deal.