Mr. Bergsten says the yen needs to rise to about 100 yen to the dollar to achieve the Clinton Administration's goal of cutting Japan's worldwide surplus in half as a percentage of gross domestic product.

Japan's worldwide surplus rose 25 percent in September from a year earlier to a record $12.1 billion, the Finance Ministry reported.

"Margins in refining activities and the resulting earnings in the down stream have been dampened by the worldwide surplus of petroleum supplies," Texaco's chief executive, James W. Kinnear, said.

Still, a worldwide surplus of grain caused prices to plummet, and there were more farm foreclosures in the Reagan years than at any time since the Depression.

And between the droughts of 1980, 1984, 1985 and this year, grain farmers have had to contend with worldwide surpluses, a punishing fall in prices and subsidy wars between the United States and western Europe.

In seeking the elimination of the subsidies and barriers, the Administration maintains that free markets offer the only lasting solution on worldwide surpluses of farm goods and depressed prices and that the subsidies also overburden the Federal budget.

In past years, that output would have produced a worldwide surplus of crude oil and depressed prices.

The price rise has been extremely broad-based in metals, in sharp contrast to the mixed outlook for other commodities, which are more affected by weather conditions and worldwide agricultural surpluses.

Japan's worldwide surplus shrank to $6.99 billion from $8.19 billion in July 1986 and $6.61 billion last June, the ministry said.

Analysts cited the worldwide surplus of oil.