(Yicai) Jan. 25 -- A Japanese trade delegation is visiting China for four days to discuss topics including decarbonization, the strengthening of industrial capacity and stabilizing the supply chain in the first such visit since September 2019.

The delegation, which comprises representatives from the Japan-China Economic Association, the Japan Business Federation and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is in China from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26 to deepen ties with the country.

China has undergone great changes in economic scale and technological levels in the last four years, and Japanese trade bodies need to re-evaluate China through a field visit, Chen Yan, executive director of the Japanese Enterprises (China) Research Institute, told Yicai on Jan. 23.

Creating a sound and safe business environment is vital in order to stabilize the supply chain and to enable the steady growth of the Chinese and global economies, he added. As someone working in a Japanese firm in China, Chen said he hopes the visit will be very successful and help build a better China-Japan business relationship.

Mobile intelligent mobility, environmental protection and healthcare are all areas with great potential in China, said Toshihiro Ueda, executive director of Japanese material giant AGC and chief representative of AGC Group for China.

“Tokyo-based AGC’s strategic focus is on smart mobility, electronics and life sciences. This is in line with the development in China and so China is a very important market to us,” he added.

Japan is not as important to China as it was four years ago in terms of capital and technology, Chen said. So Japanese trade bodies should think about how to rebuild economic relationships with China and in which respects, he added.

Chen said he also hopes that the three Japanese economic organizations will work closely with China in emerging fields such as electric vehicles, batteries, fifth-generation mobile communications and bio-pharmaceuticals.

Japanese companies in China are generally of the opinion that the Chinese economy is improving, a survey by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China said on Jan. 15. Some 88 percent of the surveyed Japanese companies still regard China as an important market and more than half of those polled either hiked or did not cut investment in China last year.

Editor: Kim Taylor