Statement on Signing the Japanese Technical Literature Act of 1986

I have signed today S. 1073, the Japanese Technical Literature Act of 1986. S. 1073 creates a coordinated program within the Department of Commerce to increase the availability in the United States of scientific and technical literature published in the Japanese language. In my view, a better coordinated Federal effort, complementing private efforts, is needed to identify Japanese technical literature and to make it more readily available in this country.

In recent years other nations, especially Japan, have challenged America's lead in high-technology industries such as computers, semiconductors, fiber optics, and robotics. Part of Japan's success can be attributed to an active, coordinated effort at a national level to collect, translate, and apply foreign scientific and technical information.

This law will build upon ongoing efforts within the Department of Commerce, which has for some time been providing information and related services through its National Bureau of Standards, International Trade Administration, National Technical Information Service, and Patent and Trademark Office in support of the efforts of American business to compete abroad.

I welcome this express congressional recognition and encouragement of these efforts. I look forward to their continuation, within existing departmental budgetary resources, in the years ahead.