More than 1,600 Chinese tourism officials will launch an industry exchange in Japan on Wednesday to commemorate the normalization of bilateral relations.

The officials from 31 provincial and municipality tourism bureaus as well as 3,000 from tourism enterprises will attend the event, which will mainly be held in Tokyo and Osaka.

Experts said the event would display Chinese culture and promote bilateral tourism exchanges between the two countries.

Statistics show Japan ranks as the top tourist source country for China. In 2001, over 2.38 million Japanese visited China, and the number is expected to surpass 2.5 million this year. Meanwhilethe number of Chinese visitors to Japan is growing steadily. Over 410,000 Chinese travelers went to Japan last year.

( May 8, 2002)