As the 1,572th (and final) commercial Boeing 747 is delivered STEPHEN BRIDGEWATER takes a nostalgic look at the ‘Queen of the Skies’ and provides his Top 10 rarities and Top 10 fanciful variants that never left the drawing board.
In the face of a soaring U.S. trade deficit with Japan, which totalled $37 billion last year and could grow to more than $40 billion this year, demands have been mounting for easier U.S. access to Japanese markets. Since Japan's average tariff rate of 3 percent is already less than that of either the U.S. or the European Economic Community, attention has focused on Japanese nontariff barriers (NTBs). NTBs include import quotas, the "Buy National Products" law adopted by the Japanese government for domestic procurementf and various import regulations.