ABSTRACT
Japan’s enormous and continually rising export surpluses have caused that country’s trading partners to criticize it severely for many years for having an insufficiently open market. Since Japanese import duties and quotas are lower than in most other industrial countries, the spotlight nowadays is on what are known as non-tariff trade barriers, which may be divided into two groups: administrative barriers and structural barriers. Some of these non-tariff barriers impede market access for all newcomers including Japanese ones. Many of the structural obstacles standing in the way of greater development of Japanese market by foreign manufacturers are such as to be difficult to influence by State decree and will therefore certainly remain in being for much longer. The Fair Trade Commission intends to work towards limiting the de facto right to return goods, at least to the extent that there should be no more unfair returning of goods, for example because warehouse or shelf space is required for new goods.
