Perhpas it would have been more considerate on the part of our Chairman to assign the subject of Business Practices of Japanese Companies that often produce problems in the relationships between American and Japanese Companies to someone less concerned than your speaker with retaining the goodwill of his Japanese friends and customers. Mr. Gerdes of P. G. & E. would have been my choice, for he has no hope of selling you his natural gas or electricity, nor is he likely to buy any of yours. But, for better or for worse, I was the Chairman's choice and along with my companion, Mr. Fujino, we shall deal with the subject as best we can, and I hope that I can do so without offending your feelings, for criticism is not the objective of my remarks. I am not concerned here with whether the Japanese business practices are better or worse than those of America, but rather that certain of them are different and therefore likely to be the source of problems when we try to do business with each other. Nor are we concerned here with the problems that Americans experience through ignorance or the failure to recognize that the modern economic miracle of Japan is the product of a hard-working, well-educated people possessing very great skills technically as well as in the management of business and governmental affairs. In commenting on the business practices of Japanese companies that produce problems in the relationship between American and Japanese companies, our purpose here is to be constructive rather than critical. Recognition of the problem is the first step in arriving at the solution, and it is - 1 -