U.S. TO ASK FOR SHARE OF JAPAN'S RICE MARKET U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng said he will ask Japan to offer a share of its rice market to U.S. exporters when he visits that country next month. In an interview with Reuters, Lyng also said the Reagan administration will ask Tokyo to remove its quotas on U.S. beef and citrus exports. Lyng, who plans to be in Japan April 14-27, said he will not ask Tokyo to liberalize fully its rice market. "We will urge that they consider sharing their rice market," he said. The USDA secretary would not say how big a share of the Japanese rice market the U.S. would request. "We've got none of it now. If we got one per cent of it, it would be a big improvement," he said. Last year, the Reagan administration rejected a petition by the U.S. rice industry seeking relief from Japanese import restrictions. However, the U.S. said it would reexamine the issue if by mid-1987 Japan did not roll back import barriers to U.S. rice exports. Lyng said he would not be conducting formal negotiations next month with Japan over their beef and citrus quotas, but that his visit "may be a forerunner in a general way" to talks prior to expiration of the bilateral agreement in March 1988. He said, however, that the U.S. "will ask for a definite liberalization of those items (beef and citrus).... When you translate 'liberalization' into Japanese, it means do away with the quota."