TOKYO. Sept 8: Japan and the United States have reached a broad agreement on insurance business, one of three major areas in which Washington is demanding greater market access in Japan, a dally said Wednesday, reports AFP.

Under the accord, foreign insurance companies' revenues in Japan will be used to gauge the openness of the Japanese insurance market, the Malnl-chi Shimbun said.

But this does not mean that Japan will agree to accept "numerical targets" demanded by the United States to test Japanese openness to foreign products and services, the newspaper said.

A Japan-US dispute over in-

surance business is expected to be settled this month. Mainichi said.

The United States has said it will take punitive measures under its trade laws against Japan if Tokyo failed to give greater market access to foreign countries by the end of September.

The warning followed unsuccessful Japan-US talks in late July in Washington on government procurements.

With a deadline for US sanctions against Japan approaching. Japanese Trade and Industry Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto Is in the United States this week to meet US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor in Washington and Los Angeles this week.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yohef Kono will also meet Kantor in Los Angeles where Canada, the Europ' " 1 nion. Japan and the Unit" States open an annual trade meeting on Friday.

A series of "framework" talks, aimed at cutting Japan's huge trade surplus with the United States, have been unsuccessful mainly because of Tokyo's rejection of US demands to set numerical targets for testing Japanese market openness.

Last February, then Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa told US President Bill Clinton in Washington that numerical targets would undermine the free trade system and lead to managed trade.