China, Japan Remain Trade Partners After China's WTO Entry

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 26, 2001

China, Japan Remain Trade Partners After China's WTO Entry

China remains a trade partner of Japan and poses no threat to it after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), economists said.

China remains a trade partner of Japan and poses no threat to it after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), economists said.

At the just concluded Ninth China-Japan Economic Forum in China 's north port city Tianjin, Noboru Hatadeyama, chairman of Japanese External Trade Organization, said that after China's entry into the WTO, its export will not go up sharply in a short period of time.

China's Increasing Competitiveness to Benefit Japan

However, China's competitiveness will increase and this will benefit many Asian economies including Japan.

Experts pointed out that China can provide a growing market for Japan after its entry into the WTO. "China's comparatively cheap commodities will help optimize Japan's high-cost consumption structure and China's open and enlarged market will help digest Japan's surplus capital," said Zhang Shuying, an expert from Japanese Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

China, Japan Trade to Be Reinforced

Tadashi Sekizawa, president of Fujitsu Limited Company, said that the trade partnership between Japan and China will be reinforced by the growing two-way trade volume, the on-the-rise Japanese direct investment in China and the lifting status of China in terms of Japan's global trade.

In 2000, the Sino-Japanese trade volume peaked to 83.2 billion U.S. dollars, with China's imports from Japan reaching 41.5 billion U.S. dollars. It is unreasonable for some Japanese to attribute the slackened economy to China's cheap commodities, said Zhao Dawei, vice director of Asia-Pacific Research Institute of China's Institute of International Studies.

Sino-JapanTrade on the Rise

The Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) has released a first half-year report showing that China has become the second largest export market for Japan while Japanese imports from China have also jumped to second place, according to Marine-net. During the same period last year, China rated as the fourth largest exporter for Japan.

China's overall share in Japan's trade for this period was up 1.8 per cent, from 9.3 per cent in 2000 to 11.1 per cent in 2001. This growth comes in spite of a 10.9 per cent decrease in Japan's overall export trade with the rest of the world and only a 0.7 per cent increase of imports.

Japan's overall trade with China for the first half of the year grew 12.7 per cent to a total of US$43.7 billion. Out of this, exports to China grew to $15.5 billion, a 15.3 per cent increase from the same period last year, whereas imports grew by 11.3 per cent to $28.1 billion. This translates to a volume increase of 20.3 per cent for exports and an 11.6 per cent volume increase of imports to Japan.

China mainly exports machinery and equipment, as well as textile products, to Japan, the first representing 29.3 per cent and the latter representing 26.9 per cent of China's total exports to Japan.

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