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| Monday, 19 January 2009, 16:20 ICT
EU calls for greater Japanese access
The European rail and aviation lobbies are to step up their efforts to access Japanese markets .
The move comes as the French transport minister used a visit to Japan to demand "reciprocity" from the Japanese government.
During a visit to Tokyo, Dominique Bussereau said Japan should allow European firms to access its transport sector.
He said that Europe had opened its markets to Japanese companies and urged ministers to follow suit.
"We need reciprocity in the rail sector," he said Bussereau, who has also held meetings in Japan alongside EU transport commissioner, Antonio Tajani.
Japan and France have both pioneered high speed rail transport TGV are among the fastest in the world, and both countries have aggressively marketed their industries overseas.
Bussereau said that both he and Tajani had insisted that "the Japanese rail market [should] not be closed to European industry at a moment when Europe is opening to Japan".
He pointed out that France's Alstom (1022047.FR), Germany's Siemens (SI) and the European arm of Canada's Bombardier (BBD.A.T.) are "almost absent on the Japanese market."
"There are already high-speed Japanese trains in Spain and recently, a British company bought Japanese rail carriages for the Eurostar to serve... London, in particular the future Olympic station," Bussereau said.
The minister also dismissed Japanese claims that its approach was a result of security standards on critical equipment - insisting that the country was imposing a "broad interpretation of what is critical". Bussereau said.
The French government also signalled that it would step up its drive to encourage Japanese companies to buy from French aerospace provide Airbus rather than continue its close links to Boeing.
"If the Japanese market opens to Airbus, it's not unforeseeable for EADS and Airbus to open more to subcontracting," Bussereau said.
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