The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) has said in a statement that it welcomes the agreement reached on March 25 by the Japanese Government and European Union (EU) to open negotiations leading to free trade between the EU and Japan.
“We would like to take this opportunity to express our great appreciation for the work carried out to date by both the Japanese and European governments to reach this important milestone,” said Akio Toyoda, JAMA chair, in the statement.
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The statement added that the Japanese automobile industry’s longstanding presence in Europe reflects its “significant investment in the region over many years, where acting on the principles of competition and cooperation has allowed it to establish an ever-growing number of mutually beneficial partnerships with its European counterparts”.
The statement also said that JAMA is convinced that a Japan-EU free trade area “will provide a crucial opportunity in further promoting trade, investment and industrial cooperation between the two partners, and leading consequently to the growth and expansion of the automobile industry in both Japan and Europe”.
JAMA also said that the Japanese automobile industry intends to do “everything in its capacity to ensure the dialogue advances at the industry level in parallel with the initiative by the Japanese government”.
However, many in the European auto industry strongly oppose free trade in vehicles with Japan, arguing that the Japanese market is not freely accessible to European exporters and that free trade would lead to many more Japanese imports into Europe and the subsequent loss of European jobs.
