TRADE

Little Progress in U.S.-Japan Talks: Officials concluded two days of working-level talks on automotive trade and scrapped plans for a third day of negotiations. But the issue could be discussed at a May 3-5 meeting of trade ministers in Vancouver, Canada, a Japanese official said. Atsushi Oi, head of the auto section at Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, said that if the United States dropped demands for more “voluntary” buying of foreign parts by Japanese auto makers, “the possibility of reaching some kind of agreement would be higher.” Washington says the renewal and expansion of such buying is necessary to conclude an agreement in the auto sector, the only part of the 2-year-old “framework” talks that remains unresolved.