	nakasone sounds conciliatory note in chip dispute prime minister yasuhiro nakasone sounded a conciliatory note in japan s increasingly bitter row with the united states over  in computer microchips japan wants to resolve the issue through consultations by explaining its stance thoroughly and correcting the points that need to be corrected he was quoted by kyodo news service as saying while expressing regret over america s decision to impose tariffs on imports of japanese electrical goods nakasone said tokyo was willing to send a high level official to washington to help settle the dispute government officials said japan would make a formal request next week for emergency talks and that the two sides would probably meet the week after just days before the april deadline set by washington for the tariffs to take effect tokyo is expected to propose a joint u s japan investigation of american claims that japanese companies are dumping cut price chips in asian markets yesterday washington announced plans to put as much as mln dlrs in tariffs on imports of certain japanese electronic goods in retaliation for what it sees as tokyo s failure to live up to their bilateral chip pact that agreement hammered out late last year after months of heated negotiations called on japan to stop selling cut price chips in world markets and to buy more american made chips nakasone s comments seemed distinctly more conciliatory than those of his  and industry minister hajime tamura who earlier today said japan was ready to take appropriate measures if washington went ahead with the sanctions ministry of international  and industry miti officials later sought to downplay the significance of tamura s remark and said that his main message was that the two sides need to talk urgently about the issue but they admitted that japan was considering taking the united states to gatt the geneva based international organization which polices world  if washington imposed the tariffs any japanese action would probably be taken under article of the general agreement on tariffs and  gatt they said if that article were invoked gatt would set up a panel to consider the legality of the u s action but officials here said they hope that can be avoided it may be wishful thinking but there is a possibility the united states may lift its decision at an early date tamura said in announcing the u s sanctions yesterday president ronald reagan said he was prepared to lift them once he had evidence that japan was no longer dumping chips in world markets and had opened up its own market to imports japanese government officials said they are confident they can make the pact work they said that the export of cut price japanese chips through unregulated distributors has all but dried up after miti instructed domestic makers to cut output while acknowledging that it is harder to increase japanese imports of american chips miti officials said that the ministry is doing all it can to ensure that happens the ministry recently called on japan s major chip users some of whom are also leading producers to step up their purchases of foreign semiconductors a spokesman for one of the companies toshiba corp tsba t said his firm would do just that and could announce its plans in the next week or so he expects other japanese companies to do likewise reuter 
