The expectation that, as we suggested a couple of weeks back, the outcome of the Japanese telecommunications battle would be that both contenders for the independent slot in international telecommuni-cations would get licences, is gathering support. Word is that a private meeting between UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Japan’s premier Yasuhiro Nakasone took place last Tuesday during the world summit in Venice. Mrs Thatcher decided in February to make Japan’s acceptance or otherwise of Cable & Wireless’ involvement in the planned competitive environment for international from Japan a test of Japanese willingness to match its promises to open its market to outside firms with action. It is thought that the UK government is using the desires of some of the biggest Japanese financial institutions such as Nikko and Yaimaichi to follow Nomura and Daiwa into the London banking market to barter a place for Cable & Wireless in Japan. Cable & Wireless is looking for a 20% shareholding in a consortium lead jointly by international trader C Itoh. The idea of letting the two rivals battle it out in the market emerged when talks on merging the two consortia finally failed.
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