Thank you. That's a very good question. I was hoping you would ask it, because I kind of excluded that from my opening remarks.
As for the barriers to trade, I think Richard, Peter, and Janice alluded to some of them in their own sectors.
For manufactured goods, I think what we often hear from our members is that the barriers are related to standards and certification, both in their complexity and in the lack of transparency in terms of changing regulations and changing standards, and also in regard to the costs and the delays associated with getting products certified for sale into the Japanese market.
We often hear about the industrial structure in Japan. You tend to find, especially in certain key markets, that Japanese companies are vertically integrated, so they have a very close relation with their suppliers. In fact, they tend to be related parties owned by a common shareholder. They tend to have very strong control over the distribution networks. So for companies that are looking to establish a presence in that market, if there is an existing Japanese company that has a strong presence, the barriers to entry make it sometimes prohibitive for companies to really be able to grow market share and establish a presence in that market.
We also hear about issues around certification of products, as I mentioned earlier, and issues around access to the distribution network. Some of those issues can probably be dealt with through an FTA, while some of them are a little more structural in nature. That's why we think that maybe negotiating these things alongside the U.S., and with other trading partners that have raised similar issues with Japan, might hold more promise.
But these are, in a nutshell, the large overarching issues and market access issues that our members experience.