BUSINESS SECTION

Japan, Mexico fail to agree on reducing chicken import tariffs

(Kyodo) Sep. 15, 2005 -  Japan and Mexico failed to agree on a cut in Japanese tariffs on chicken imports from Mexico at their talks in Paris that ended Wednesday, Japanese officials said Thursday.

The two countries negotiated specific chicken tariff levels under the bilateral free trade agreement which went into effect last April. The FTA requires the tariffs to be cut by at least 10 percent.

Mexico called for a substantial tariff cut above that minimum but Japan wanted to limit the scale of the reduction.

Without an agreement, the Japanese tariff will automatically fall from 11.9 percent to 10.7 percent on boneless chicken imports from Mexico and from 8.5 percent to 7.6 percent on chicken on the bone in fiscal 2006, which starts next April.

The chicken tariffs for later years will be negotiated in 2006 along with beef and citrus fruit tariffs.

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