THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                          (New York, New York)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 September 22, 1998

                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
               AND JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER KEIZO OBUCHI
                   DURING SECOND PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

                      The Waldorf Astoria Hotel
                         New York, New York

1:02 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I'd like to say to the members of the Japanese press, I'm sorry that you had to go all the way to Tarrytown and then come back. But at least you have seen it -- we didn't even get to see it. (Laughter.)

I want to welcome Prime Minister Obuchi and his team here. We have had very good meetings already today. The United States has no more important relationship in the world than our relationship with Japan. We are very interested in deepening our partnership in the security area, in the political area and in doing what we can economically together to restore growth in the world and to stabilize the world financial situation. All these matters we have discussed today in a friendly and constructive atmosphere.

I just wanted to say one other thing. I invited Prime Minister Obuchi to come back to Washington early next year for an official visit, and he accepted and I thank him for that.

PRIME MINISTER OBUCHI: All the strong and solid partnership between Japan and the United States could not lift this fog and it is unfortunate that some of you had to go to Tarrytown and come back, and I'm sorry about that. But as the President said just now, I've been invited and I've accepted his invitation to visit the United States in the early part of next year. And I look forward to meeting him again in Washington.

Q Mr. President, you've said how busy you are, but I just wonder if you haven't found some time to check with Congress about how things are going?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we're just a few days away from the new budget year and I'd say things need to go a little faster. We need an education bill, we need a health bill. We desperately need the IMF funding. They need to pass a good patients' bill of rights. There's a lot left to be done. Things are not going fast enough to suit me on the people's business.

END 1:08 P.M. EDT