1 Chrysler Corp. and General Motors Corp. took issue Friday with a newspaper report that suggested they had lost enthusiasm for government efforts to open Japan to U.S. auto sales.
2 'American automakers must have full access to the Japanese market if there is to be any hope of reaching our full potential in Japan,' Chrysler Chairman Robert J. Eaton said in a news release.
3 He was reacting to a report from Tokyo in Thursday's Wall Street Journal quoting him as saying Chrysler was too busy elsewhere to give high priority to expanding its sales in Japan. 'We have capacity limitations, so why bother,' Eaton said in the report.
4 The Journal story 'did not fully reflect either Chrysler's or my position concerning this issue,' Eaton said. 'It did, however, show the level of frustration I have in dealing with our constant exclusion from the Japanese market and the ongoing, laborious negotiations to gain access.'
5 U.S. trade negotiators are pushing Japan to put pressure on its automakers to give GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. access to dealer networks controlled by the Japanese companies. Japanese-built cars and trucks account for the major share of the U.S. trade deficit with Japan.
6 The Journal report quoted unidentified GM executives in Tokyo as saying high real estate prices in Japan, not access to dealer networks, were the major barrier to selling GM cars there.
7 GM President Jack Smith, in a letter Friday to the Commerce Department's international trade chief, said he was surprised by the report.
8 'Let me assure you that General Motors supports fully the administration's efforts to open the Japanese market,' Smith wrote to Jeffrey E. Garten, undersecretary of commerce for international trade.
9 'The main obstacle for us is still dealer access,' GM spokesman Michael Meyerand said Friday.
10 GM sold about 39,500 cars and trucks in Japan last year, while Chrysler sales totaled about 13,000. Foreign car sales comprised about 8 percent of the Japanese market in 1994. Sales of cars built by Japanese manufacturers account for about a quarter of the U.S. market.

Chrysler Corp . and General Motors Corp . took issue Friday with a newspaper report that suggested they had lost enthusiasm for government efforts to open Japan to U . S . auto sales .
enthusiasm
Who was the newspaper's source of information?