ISDS Case Map
Japan
This study examines the employment impacts of Canada's existing bilateral trade relationships with East Asia, and the likely employment effects of the proposed Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement (CKFTA).
What Japan wants is the conclusion of an EPA with Australia that is not limited simply to trade liberalization, but is comprehensive in character, further enhancing bilateral economic relations, and eliminating disadvantages relative to other countries.
Japan and Australia will hold a three-day meeting in Tokyo to study the feasibility of a bilateral free trade agreement, Japanese officials said.
Japan and Indonesia held intergovernmental negotiations four times from July 2005 to April 2006 regarding the conclusion of a bilateral economic partnership agreement (EPA). The EPA negotiations timetable for Japan recently released by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy states that Japan will aim to reach an agreement with Indonesia in principle on major points of the negotiations by sometime this summer.
The Japan Business Federation, the nation's most powerful business lobby, proposed that Japan promptly launch negotiations with Australia to conclude an economic partnership agreement.
Amid growing concern that Japan could be left behind by the proliferation of regional trade agreements, the government recently floated a proposal for what it describes as a comprehensive economic partnership for East Asia.
Japan's Ministry of Finance said Wednesday that it plans to amend customs-related laws and ordinances to enable Japan to invoke emergency restrictions on imports from the Philippines.
The militant Filipino labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said it fears more retrenchments and lower wages with the impending liberalization of the country's automotive and steel sectors under the recently signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).
The free-trade agreement clinched with the Philippines on Saturday will test whether Japan is serious about opening its labor market, a change that would trade homogeneity for a more youthful workforce.
