TRANSCRIPT: 9/29 TOYKO PRESS BRIEFING BY JOHN KOSKINEN
(U.S., Japan must assist others with Y2K problems)Tokyo -- It is important not only for Japan and the United States to work together to solve their own Y2K problems, but to work together to provide assistance to other countries around the world, according to John A. Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion.
During a press briefing at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo September 29, Koskinen said: "We talked about the need for Japan and the United States to work together in a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the OECD, and APEC."
"We are particularly concerned about providing whatever technical advice and assistance we can to the Southeast Asian area," he said. "We are sensitive to the economic challenges many countries are facing immediately, but agreed to work together to increase the level of activity on the Year 2000 problem in these areas."
The major focus of this meetings in Japan, Koskinen said, "was on doing whatever we can jointly to ensure that as many systems as possible will be fixed and will operate effectively at the end of next year. But we also agreed that it is clear that in the United States, in Japan and around the world, not every system will be fixed. Therefore, we talked in general about the need to have contingency plans and back-up plans to ensure that critical services will be provided everywhere, even if some systems do not operate effectively."
Following is a transcript of the press briefing:
(begin transcript)
PRESS BRIEFING BY JOHN A. KOSKINEN Chairman, President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion
September 29, 1998 American Embassy, Tokyo
Good morning. I am happy to have the opportunity to talk with all of you. I have come to Japan at the request of the Japanese Government, and I was pleased to respond to that request. We had a very good series of meetings, and obviously, as shown by the discussion on this matter between Prime Minister Obuchi and President Clinton last week, and by my meeting with the Prime Minister yesterday, the Year 2000 problem is getting attention and has a strong commitment in Japan at the highest levels in the government and I think increasingly in the private sector.
In addition to meeting with Prime Minister Obuchi, I met with Mr. Takashima, Chief Cabinet Counselor, who is now coordinating the Japanese Government activities in this area. He and I agreed that we would set up joint working committees between Japan and the United States in five very important areas -- finance, telecommunications, transportation, energy and health.
I also had a very good meeting with Mr. [Tadahiro] Sekimoto (Chairman, Y2K Advisor's Conference) and an address and discussion with the members of the Keidanren about the nature of the problem and the way we have been addressing it in the United States.
I was pleased to meet again with Mr. Konno, the Director General [of International Trade Policy] at MITI. Mr. Konno visited me in my office in Washington and urged me to accept the government's invitation to come here for these meetings.
In my meeting with Mr. Tabata at the Bank of Japan, we reviewed the international activities going on with central bankers around the world in the Joint Year 2000 Council, as well as the operations of the Global 2000 Coordinating Group, which includes several large Japanese financial institutions.
I concluded my meetings yesterday with a meeting with Mr. Oshima, the Director General for Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We had a working dinner with several of the gentlemen who will be the coordinators for the five working groups on behalf of the Government of Japan. In all of these meetings, we talked not only about the importance of Japan and the United States working together to solve our own problems, but the importance of working together to provide assistance to other countries around the world since this is truly a global problem.
We talked about the need for Japan and the United States to work together in a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the OECD, and APEC.
We are particularly concerned about providing whatever technical advice and assistance we can to the Southeast Asian area. We are sensitive to the economic challenges many countries are facing immediately, but agreed to work together to increase the level of activity on the Year 2000 problem in these areas.
As I told Prime Minister Obuchi, his meeting and discussion with President Clinton last week, and the development of an Action Plan by the Government of Japan this month, send very strong and important signals to the rest of the world about the need for everyone to address this problem and to address it immediately.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.
Q: I heard that Japan is way behind the United States in dealing with this problem. Any sense about that?
KOSKINEN: I think it's hard to judge, in a complicated problem like this, where countries are. I leave at the end of these meetings very pleased with the level of progress going on in Japan. As I noted in my meetings yesterday, we still have significant challenges in the United States, both in our government systems and in our private sector systems. So I am less concerned about who's ahead or behind and more concerned about our doing whatever we can to make sure that everyone is together as we move to the end of next year.
Q: Sir, in your meetings with Japanese government leaders, did you in your talks focus on preventing major computer failures come 400-some odd days from now, or was it also what emergency measures could be taken should there be major systems failures in Japan, say, in utilities, transportation, health care?
KOSKINEN: Our major focus was on doing whatever we can jointly to ensure that as many systems as possible will be fixed and will operate effectively at the end of next year. But we also agreed that it is clear that in the United States, in Japan and around the world, not every system will be fixed. Therefore, we talked in general about the need to have contingency plans and back-up plans to ensure that critical services will be provided everywhere, even if some systems do not operate effectively.
Q: Will this effort also address the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Security Treaty for the military issues, or is that something handled at the Department of Defense level?
KOSKINEN: That is an issue that the Defense Department is handling directly with allies of ours around the world. Deputy Secretary Hamre was here several days ago, and I expect that the Defense Department will continue to engage in bilateral discussions around the world, including Europe as well as Asia.
Q: Could you tell us about what specific areas of contingency plans and other plans you discussed and...top priorities for having these contingency plans?
KOSKINEN: We talked about contingency planning at a fairly general level, but we did discuss the need to coordinate people who respond to various kinds of challenges since we expect that we may have to deal with international challenges at the same time we are dealing with localized issues domestically, and I think that is likely to be the situation for most countries.
Our joint working groups address some of the basic infrastructure areas that we are most concerned about in the United States. Obviously, every one depends upon the provision of power and every one depends upon financial services and telecommunications being able to function, so if we have any serious disruption in power or telecommunications, particularly, that is a great risk as it would affect everyone.
Q: (Note: Not speaking into microphone) ... assistance is needed in Southeast Asia. Is the U.S. providing that assistance? In what form will that be?
KOSKINEN: I think that advice will be provided by both Japan and the United States and, in particular, by companies in our private sectors who have both experience of their own about how to deal with this problem and also, in many cases, have provided the hardware, software or manufacturing systems that are used throughout the area.
Q: If I could add to that comment. In your statement right now you were talking about software, hardware, etc. There is an enormous shortage of COBOL programmers in the United States, and in the U.S. people are racing to fix this problem. Do you see the U.S. selling or providing services that are in shortage in the U.S. to Japan to fix this problem?
KOSKINEN: I would note first that the expected shortage of COBOL programmers does not appear to have been a major problem yet in the U.S. What we contemplate in a bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Japan is not so much our providing services, because the Japanese have great expertise themselves, but rather our sharing experiences in terms of fixing the system and particularly testing and test results.
Q: I think it will become more and more important to attract people's attention and, thereby, disclose more information. But in what way do you think it is most appropriate to disclose information? Who should be disclosing information, in what way? Of course, the more information is disclosed the better, but if the manufacturers in the private sector, for example, disclose the information to show the results that they have come up with one by one, that may result in some confusion.
Conversely, if they wait until some time later and come up with a series of results and the disclose information, that may miss the right timing. Timing may be somewhat delayed. So what form do you think is most appropriate for information to be disclosed?
KOSKINEN: Let me say first that the disclosure of information is very important so that the public will have confidence that the problem is being addressed, and will be comfortable knowing what is already fixed and where work is still progressing.
In the U.S., we have established working groups in a number of different areas. The private sector associations in each of those areas are providing us industry assessments of how much work has been done and how much remains to be done, which we think is an effective way of collecting information rather than trying to collect it from each and every company.
We think individual companies will be more comfortable and will provide better information if they are providing it to a trade association or someone else who is then compiling the information for us to use.
Q: Given the fact that this problem has been on the electronic landscape for many years, we have 15 months till the year 2000. Is that a realistic time frame to address these problems?
KOSKINEN: We actually have 458 days left. Fortunately, in Japan as well as in the U.S. and around the world, many governments and many companies have already been working on this problem for some time. It is clear that if you are a large, or even a medium sized company, and you have not started to take action now, you should clearly start, but it will be unlikely that you will finish with all of your systems in the days left.
In the U.S. we are encouraging companies to share with each other technical information about how they have dealt with the problem, their experience with particular products, their test results, and their general state of preparedness.
Q: I understand that there is going to be a public-private international conference to be held in London on October 15 and 16. In this international conference what is going to be discussed and what kind of decisions would you like to see made in this London conference?
KOSKINEN: This conference, which is sponsored by a number of organizations, will talk about actions and activities going on in several areas, in financial institutions, some operating areas. There will also be a separate meeting at the same time with telecommunication companies from around the world, again sharing information about how they are dealing with the problem.
Those who established the conference do not envision that it will make decisions. It is designed primarily again to increase the level of awareness internationally and to begin to set up vehicles for sharing information much the way financial institutions now share information in the Global Year 2000 Group.
The organizers of the meeting hope that there will be, as a result, international organizations of private sector companies dealing with some of the important industries like telecommunications, transportation and energy.
Q: You talked about the private sector companies. The small and medium sized enterprises in Japan are suffering from financial difficulties partly because of the credit crunch. The financial institutions are reluctant to extend loans, and so forth. Because of the financial situation, SMEs in Japan are finding it difficult to address the computer Year 2000 program.
In your discussions with the officials of the Japanese government yesterday, what kind of discussion did you have with regards to SMEs addressing this issue?
KOSKINEN: The problem of SMEs is a problem around the world. Every country I have talked with is concerned, as we in the U.S. are, about the low level of activity by SMEs in the Year 2000 problem.
In my meetings we did discuss the importance of providing financial assistance, where appropriate, to small and medium sized enterprises if they otherwise cannot deal with the problem.
In the U.S. legislation has been proposed, but not yet passed, that would increase our loan program at low interest rates for small businesses.
Q: I wonder if you could tell us where we stand with the preparedness in air traffic controls...
KOSKINEN: It's one of the areas of greatest concern to the public, obviously. In the U.S. there were great questions about whether our air traffic control system run by the government would be ready in time. But I am now confident that we are making great progress, and the U.S. air traffic control system will work.
We have already had a good working relationship between our air traffic control system and the Japanese air traffic control system. They are working together, and we expect the Japanese system will also be able to deal with the Year 2000.
But we both need to work together to encourage other countries where I think there is greater risk about the ability of air traffic systems to work. If they don't, it means that generally what will happen is air traffic will have to slow down in those areas which will create back-ups.
Our ongoing concern in the U.S. is not about the air traffic control system. It's actually about the airports, which are run by separate authorities and have many integrated circuits for embedded chips in their operation. And so we are working to encourage all of them to address this problem aggressively.
Q: Between the U.S. and Japan there is a shared understanding that it is necessary for the two countries to cooperate to encourage other countries in the world to address the Year 2000 issue. However, in particular, if you look at Asia, there are countries which are having difficulties, such as Korea with respect to economic issues, and Indonesia with respect to political turmoil.
You may not have discussed these countries specifically in your talks with the government officials in Japan, but what should the U.S. and Japan do together to help these countries? How do you think about what the two countries can do in the area of Asia?
KOSKINEN: Again, I think what we can do together is, first, to urge those countries to deal with this problem as an important problem at the highest levels, not only in their governments but in their private sector companies.
Also, as I noted earlier, many Japanese and U.S. companies have provided information technology systems to those countries, and many companies in Japan and the U.S. are using similar systems. Therefore, we hope to encourage companies in both of our countries to share whatever technical information they can with counterpart companies in those countries.
We are pleased with the indications of growing awareness in other countries in Southeast Asia, and while it may be getting late we are hoping to build on that momentum to increase the level of activity in those countries.
(end transcript)
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