First overseas mission for Beckett

Beckett Reassures Japanese Industry

On her first overseas trip since her appointment, Mrs Beckett is meeting the leaders of Japanese business and finance.

She is the first minister from the new Labour government to visit Tokyo and as such she is charged with reassuring Japan that the British economy and Japanese investment are safe in Labour's hands.

Japanese industry has been anxious to hear at first-hand what a Labour government means. Top of its concerns is what position Labour will take on Europe. More than two hundred and fifty Japanese companies have factories in Britain - representing forty per cent of Japanese investment in Europe.

On the first day of a three-day visit, Beckett met the heads of Toyota, Honda and Nissan. British officials said neither the carmakers nor Mrs Beckett had specific proposals to consider and the meetings were more to lay the groundwork for a comfortable trade relationship between Japan and the new Labour government.

The underlying message was that Labour is strongly committed to a European single market and the days of a threat to Britain being used as a manufacturing base for Europe from "Eurosceptic" Conservatives were over.

There are at present 259 Japanese companies with plants in Europe and they represent nearly 40 percent of the total Japanese manufacturing investment in the European Union.

But there is increasing competition for business in eastern as well as western Europe. Recent reports have mentioned France, Spain, Germany, Poland and Slovakia as possible sites for Japanese car plants that Britain might once have regarded as its own.

Many of Mrs Beckett's meetings are being held on board the Royal yacht Britannia, currently anchored in Tokyo Bay. Despite its own uncertain future, the yatch is acting as a powerful symbol of stability in tradition-conscious Japan.