New Height Expected for Sino-Japan Economic CooperationJapan-China Economic Association and the Japan International Trade Promotion Association jointly held the New Year banquet in the New Ohtani Hotel of Tokyo on January 9. Chinese Ambassador to Japan Chen Jian enumerated three major favorable factors at the banquet and wished a new height for the Sino-Japan economic cooperation.He said that the past year saw a record high in Sino-Japan trade volume and a restorative growth of Japanese investment in China, and he hoped that Chinese and Japanese economic circles would grasp the opportunity to arrest new, still greater development in the new year. He listed three major good news on the Chinese side: First, China is expected to join the WTO this year and so the Chinese market will be further opened to the outside world; second, China begins implementing its "10th Five-year Plan" this year and the Chinese economy is expected to see a stable growth in the coming five years; third, China will begin this year to implement the strategy for the large-scale development of the western region. Chen Jian said that in accordance with the agreement reached between Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori during Premier Zhu's visit to Japan last year, Japan will send an official-civilian delegation to investigate China's western regions, and he wished that people engaging in economic cooperation would push the Sino-Japan economic cooperation to a higher level. Yoshio Sakurauchi, chairman of the Japan International Trade Association, spoke highly of Premier Zhu's last year visit to Japan. He said with optimism that along with China's accession to the WTO and implementation of large-scale western region development, Sino-Japan economic cooperation will achieve new development. He estimated that the bilateral trade volume would possibly exceed US$100 billion in the first year of the new century. By PD Online staff member Deng Gang |
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