Nicola Berkovic | July 26, 2008 SERVICES and investment will be centre stage during free trade negotiations with Japan next week, as Australia tries to ease the way for professional services and telecommunications firms seeking to set up shop in Japan. Agriculture will be high on the agenda during the Tokyo meetings. Japan imposes huge tariff and quota barriers on Australian exports including beef, dairy, grains and sugar, but has so far sought to exclude the key commodities from the agreement. A senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official said an agreement on agriculture was still a long way off. "We'd like to conclude an agreement as soon as possible, but it will have to be a commercially meaningful agreement," he said. "That means ... we would need commercially meaningful outcomes on agriculture (but) it is...
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