The West German Government will be asked June 16 to provide nearly 850 million marks (470 million dollars) to lay off or retrain 20,000 steel workers whose jobs are threatened by the recent slump in the country’s steel industry. Government spokesman Friedhelm Ost said Chancellor Helmut Kohl will review a joint proposal by steel employers and trade unions at a meeting on the ailing industry tomorrow. Both steel employers and union leaders are expected to tell Kohl tomorrow that the Government has failed to do enough to protect German steel firms from subsidies and unfair competition from other European Community members.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng, reacting to recent criticism of U.S. meat inspection, defended the program saying the United States has the best inspection system in the world. Speaking to representatives of the U.S. National Cattlemen’s Association, NCA, Lyng attacked what he called recent “terribly biased” press reports critical of USDA poultry inspection. He cited a report on CBS “60 Minutes” which criticized USDA salmonella detection in poultry. “I know we have the finest meat and poultry inspection system in the world,” Lyng told the cattlemen.

The Federal Reserve is expected to directly supply temporary reserves by arranging three or four-day System repurchase agreements, economists said. They said there is less chance that it will add reserves indirectly instead. If the Fed fails to supply reserves, however, economists said this will be a strong indication that it is firming policy, perhaps in preparation for a near term discount rate increase from 5-1/2 pct. Federal funds, which averaged 6.

President Reagan warned the U.S. Congress in his weekly radio address against passing what he called dangerous, protectionist trade legislation that would tie his hands in trade negotiations with Japan and other countries. Reagan, who will hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone here this week, said he would lift tariffs imposed last week against some Japanese products as soon as Tokyo complied with a U.S.-Japanese pact on semiconductors.

China is likely to borrow up to 300 mln dlrs this year from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), president Masao Fujioka said. The loans would be China’s first from the ADB. “I think there will be at least one loan to China this year, and possibly a second,” Fujioka told a news conference at the end of the ADB’s annual meeting here. Asked how large the loans were likely to be, Fujioka said he thought they would range from 100 mln to 150 mln dlrs each.

Thailand will this week seek clarification from the U.S. About its decision to freeze rice export prices from January to early April, Commerce Minister Montri Pongpanich said. Montri told reporters he will seek a meeting with U.S. Ambassador William Brown to determine why the U.S. Failed to set its weekly rice prices in accordance with rising world prices during the period. He said the U.S. Has followed a policy of weakening world rice prices by announcing highly subsidised export prices lower than those quoted by Thai traders.

Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa opened the 20th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank by holding out the promise of more Japanese money for the organisation. “We are … Striving to enhance the flow of capital from Japan to the developing countries,” he said. “The Asia-Pacific region is an area of special concern for us in our bilateral and multilateral assistance.” He said Tokyo was ready to study setting up a special Japanese fund at the ADB, like the one at the World Bank.

The U.S. Administration, under Congressional pressure to cut the trade deficit, will urge Tokyo and Bonn to meet commitments to speed economic growth to stabilise currencies at Wednesday’s meetings of leading industrial nations in Washington, monetary sources said. The U.S. Will also try to develop proposals made at the 1986 Tokyo Summit for measures to ensure agreements such as the Paris Accord are more binding, they said. Treasury Secretary James Baker’s dual initiatives reflect U.

Treasury Secretary James Baker said any further decline in the dollar against other currencies would be counterproductive. Baker was asked after a speech to the Pan American Economic Leadership Conference about U.S. policy in light of President Reagan’s comment last week at the Venice summit that he could see some further decline in the dollar within reason. “All of the G-7 nations believe that any further decline in the dollar would be counterproductive,” Baker told reporters.

North Korea unveiled plans to boost industrial and agricultural production over the next seven years and to greatly expand trade with other nations, the official North Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, reported. Prime Minister Li Gun-mo told the eighth Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang agricultural production will rise 1.4 times in the period of the new seven-year plan, the agency said. “For a more satisfactory solution of the problem of food, clothing and housing for the people, a 15 mln tonne target of grain will be hit…And 1.