Bilateral trade volume between China and Japan could top US$200
billion in 2006, according to Chong Quan, spokesman for China's
Ministry of Commerce.
Japan is the second largest investor in China. Trade volume
between the two countries in the first eight months of this year
reached US$131.3 billion, 11.8 percent up from last year.
Chong said that he hoped the two countries could enhance
cooperation in environmental protection, especially between small
and medium-sized enterprises.
"Environmental protection is one of the major tasks of China's
11th Five-Year Plan, for which the government
has earmarked US$500 billion, while Japan excels in garbage and
sewage disposal as well as utilization of renewable energy
sources."
He revealed that the two countries will hold a symposium on
environmental protection next year.
Chong was speaking at the Eleventh Sino-Japanese Economic
Symposium in Changxing County, east China's Zhejiang Province, on Monday. The event was
attended by about 500 politicians and businessmen from both
countries.
"China has great potential in economic development while Japan
has stepped out of economic depression," said Nikai Toshihiro,
member of Liberal Democrats' Diet Affairs Committee, "so the two
countries can seek cooperation in new fields for mutual
development."
Ryoki Sugita, head of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun
(Japanese Economic News Press), noted that an improvement in
relations between China and Japan is the basis of economic
cooperation. He said he hoped the two countries could resume their
friendship.
The biannual symposium, co-organized by the Chinese government's
mouthpiece People's Daily and the Nihon Keizai
Shimbun, closely follows the new Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe's landmark visit to China. The visit was hailed as a
"turning point" in declining China-Japan relations.
(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2006)