The government held its first ministerial meeting Tuesday in preparation for joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations and will set up a team of officials from various ministries for consultations.
The team, consisting of about 50 officials, will be divided into three groups, one covering consultations with TPP member countries, another in charge of liaison and coordination for related Japanese entities and the third focusing on public relations in distributing information related to the talks and other TPP-related issues.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in November that Japan will begin consultations with participating countries toward joining in the multilateral talks for creating the Pacific-wide free-trade pact, fending off opposition from various parties about unwanted changes that may result from entering the TPP deal.
Noda said at the time that the government will make a final decision on whether to join the talks on the tariff-cutting pact "from the standpoint of serving the national interests" after holding sufficient national debate.
Participating ministers were briefed about a meeting of officials from the nine current TPP negotiation partners, including Australia, the U.S. and Singapore, held last week in Malaysia.
National policy minister Motohisa Fukukawa, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba, trade minister Yukio Edano and farm minister Michihiko Kano took part in Tuesday's discussions.