Japanese press reports said Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has said he may compromise on his controversial sales tax plan, bowing to widespread opposition even within his own party. The reports said he told a meeting of supporters of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party today the proposed five pct tax should be amended if there was anything wrong with it. Officials were not immediately available for comment. Until now, Nakasone had vowed to press on with the tax as part of his plan to reform Japan’s 36-year-old tax system.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson criticised media coverage of comments he made yesterday, when he was reported as saying he wanted sterling to stay roughly where it was, specifying a rate of around 2.90 marks and 1.60 dlrs to the pound. Holding up a newspaper report on his comments headed “Exchange Rate Targets Set” Lawson told journalists “This story is a complete non-event.” He criticised the report, which said he was now targetting sterling against the dollar and mark.

The Bank of Japan’s deputy governor Yasushi Mieno told a parliamentary Upper House budget committee that the central bank has no monetary measures other than intervention planned to stabilize currency rates. He also said the Bank of Japan is not considering a cut in its 2.5 pct discount rate. Mieno said the central bank is determined to restore currency stability through intervention by the major industrial nations as recent exchange rate volatility stems from speculation.

Ghana is taking steps to combat imminent famine in certain areas near its border with Togo following scant rainfall, Accra Radio reported today. The Radio, monitored in Abidjan, said fishing and farming activities have been disrupted in certain districts around the Volta region near the eastern coast. The report follows a period of unusually dry weather in both Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which trade sources in Abidjan said could pose problems for important developing cocoa crops.

The U.K. Economy looks stronger than it did only last month, when the government unveiled its budget for fiscal 1987/88, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson said. He told Parliament that “all the indicators that have been published since the budget confirm that, if anything, we are doing even better than I suggested then.” The budget was unveiled on March 17. “The PSBR (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) has come out lower than I forecast in the Budget.

U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said it was up to the Agriculture Department to decide whether to offer subsidized wheat to the Soviet Union. Shultz told the Newspaper Farm Editors of America that a wheat bonus offer to the Soviet Union “is something that I basically leave to the Agriculture Department to figure out.” Last year, Shultz spoke out against President Reagan’s decision to offer subsidized U.S. wheat to the Soviet Union – an offer Moscow spurned.

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said he hopes his visit to Washington later this week will help resolve Japan’s severe trade problems with the United States. Nakasone leaves on his sixth official visit to the United States on Wednesday, only weeks after President Reagan imposed punitive tariffs of 300 mln dlrs a year on Japanese electronic goods for alleged violation of a semiconductor pact. Japan also faces more possible sanctions amid calls in the U.

Taiwan’s target for sugar production in the 1987/88 season (November/May) has been set at 600,000 tonnes, up from the 479,200 tonnes harvested in 1986/87, a spokesman for the state-owned Taiwan Sugar Corp told Reuters. He said the increase was to meet rising local consumption, estimated at about 500,000 tonnes in calendar 1988 against 470,000 tonnes in 1987. Taiwan would have a surplus for export of about 100,000 tonnes in 1988, he said.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe called on industrial and developing countries to combat trade protectionism and remove barriers which impede free trading in agricultural products. Howe said in an address to the annual meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) that success in fighting protectionism hinges on the current Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He said Britain is committed to resisting and combatting protectionism because free trade is vital to Britain where 30 pct of the gnp comes from trade in goods and services.

The resignation of Finance Minister Dilson Funaro is bound to focus attention on whether Brazil will now adopt a more flexible debt stance and move towards an accord with creditors, bankers and political analysts said. With Funaro in charge, Brazil’s relations with creditors sank to a low ebb, they said. Bankers told anti-Funaro jokes from Sao Paulo to New York and economic analysts said the personal animosity between the minister and U.