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.

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.

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.

( November 26, 2001)