US concern

LLOYD BENTSEN, the new US Treasury Secretary told Japan's Finance Minister, Yoshiro Hayashi, he was 'deeply troubled' by slow world economic growth and especially by slow growth in Japan, at their meeting on Friday. Mr Bentsen stressed the importance of Japan opening its markets to goods from abroad and introducing measures to promote consumption in Japan to reduce its trade surpluses with the US, said a US official.

No specific requests for policy action were made by either side during the meeting, the Treasury official said. He refused to comment on any discussion about the relationship between the dollar and the yen.