US trade officials completed two days of talks this week with their Japanese counterparts on a 1995 trade agreement that was to open Japan's market to more American-made vehicles and parts. They said sales of cars in Japan by Detroit's Big Three - Chrysler Corporation, General Motors and Ford -- were down by 31 per cent so far this year. While overall car sales in Japan fell by 13 per cent this year, total foreign car share of the market has dropped to 4.6 per cent from 5.4 per cent last year, they said.

Trade officials, who asked not to be identified, said they made it clear to Japanese officials that Japan's recession and growing trade surplus with the United States made it all the more urgent for Tokyo to make the hard fought 1995 agreement on automotive trade moreof a success than it has been.

``We have continued to characterise it over a long period of time now that they have complied with the letter of the agreement but not necessarily the spirit of the agreement,'' a US trade official told reporters in a telephone conference after the two days of talks in San Francisco. ``I think that is true of the vast majority of agreements with Japan.'' The officials said they asked Japan to reinforce efforts to let dealers who sell Japanese made cars know that they are free to sell competing foreign cars.

They also asked Japan to streamline the new vehicle registration process, which they said would improve profitability of Japanese dealerships and encourage establishment of new ones.

US officials encouraged Japan to provide financial incentives to help dealers as they have in the past. The US officials said they were disappointed that Japanese transport officials who took part in the talks were not more open to suggestions of further deregulation in Japan's car repairmarket.

They said they were concerned that Japanese manufacturers were not expanding their purchases of US-made parts as much they did in the first few years of the trade agreement.

US officials said they asked Japanese manufacturers to spell out their plans for purchases of US parts as they did when the 1995 trade agreement was reached.

The talks in San Francisco was the third joint review of that agreement since it was signed after the two countries nearly reached the brink of a tit-for-tat trade war.