A short questionnaire from Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) sent to the Japan Advertising Agencies Association and circulated among a small group of leading Japanese agencies is caused consternation - indicated by a sharp sucking of breath - among many industry executives. The questionnaire is part of Japan's preparations for the next round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in 2000 which will focus on service industries and is designed to help MITI make international comparisons between the advertising industries in the USA, Europe, and Japan..

Japan often takes a battering in WTO talks since the USA in particular frequently maintains that many Japanese markets are far from open to foreign competition. Even when tariff and regulatory barriers are peeled away, there remain customs and practices that can either raise the price of market entry or ensure that foreign competitors make very slow progress on Japanese turf. And so it clearly behooves MITI's negotiators to bone up on advertising as well as any other service industries that may be in the firing line.

Many the questions simply collect basic facts and figures about the Japanese advertising industry and the broad plans of Japanese agencies

But a number of questions show the sensitivities. For example one question asks about the market shares of Western agencies in Japan and adds, in parentheses 'The USA was demanding to secure market share [targets] in the semiconductor and automobile negotiations.'

This and other questions about domestic business practices are especially worrying to many executives who have seen the questionnaire. Questions are also asked about the market dominance of Dentsu and Hakuhodo; Agency shares of prime-time TV [Dentsu has about 50%], transparency; the lack of written agreements between Japanese agencies and their clients, and between Japanese agencies and the media; the preferential discounts offered to some advertisers; and the lack of financial transparency.

All these are topics that have long vexed managers of international agencies and many of their clients in Japan yet, according to a spokesman in MITI's trade relations bureau, answers to the questionnaire indicated that foreign agencies experience no undue problems in Japan. However since foreign agencies were not given the opportunity to see or respond to the questionnaire, there would appear to be a difference between the Japanese party line and the views of many foreign agencies.

Had foreign agencies been asked their views, they might well have raised a number of current issues. These include problems in ascertaining whether TV spots are ever aired as scheduled outside the main metropolitan regions - in recent years spot checks have caught a number of TV stations invoicing for spots they never transmit.

There is also the problem of conducting media research in Japan. The industry's main provider of media research data, Video Research Co, is partly owned by Dentsu and Hakuhodo and sets prices so high that little industry media research is ever affordable. Meanwhile Dentsu and Hakuhodo invest heavily in their own sophisticated proprietary research systems. As a the planning activities of result international agencies are often handicapped by data deficiencies, unless of course they invest massively in proprietary studies of their own.

But none of that matters too much since there is still ample time for the European and US negotiators to research the questions for which the Japanese are already preparing some deft answers.