World : Japan Keeps Lid on Car Exports

TOKYO — Japan expects to have exported 2.2 million cars to the United States in the fiscal year ending in March, officials said today--100,000 cars below a self-imposed annual quota that does not take into account U.S.-built Japanese cars. The government said it would continue the so-called restraint policy in order to avoid aggravating trade tensions.

Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, the minister of international trade and industry, was asked at a news conference about complaints from some U.S. lawmakers that Japanese cars built in the United States should also be counted as U.S. imports. He replied that by 1991, the local content of U.S.-made Japanese cars would be 75%, “and we regard them as American-made cars.”