The 17th Joint Conference of Sino-Japan Investment Promotion Organization was held in Tokyo on June 7. Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua, President of Japan-China Investment Promotion Organization Shoichiro Toyoda as well as more than 100 representatives from government departments and business communities of the two countries were present.

Minister Chen pointed out in his speech that to absorb foreign capital was the important content of China’s opening-up. Despite the financial crisis, China has maintained a good momentum in absorbing foreign capital, which proved that China was still the most attractive destination for foreign investment in the world. China persistently devoted itself to creating a more optimized and open environment for foreign investment. Recently, the State Council released the Several Opinions on Further Utilization of Foreign Investment, stating that China will further optimize the structure of foreign capital, encourage foreign investment in high-end manufacturing industries, high-tech industry, modern service industry, new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection industries, encourage foreign investors to make investment in central and western China, boost the diversification in absorbing foreign capital, deepen the reform of foreign investment management system and create a good investment environment.

As for Japanese enterprises’ concern, Chen stated that as China was building an innovation-oriented country, China well understood that only by protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) can we protect innovation. And thus, China has considered IPR protection as the state strategy and established fairly complete IPR protection system so as to enhance the protection. The Chinese government equally encouraged all foreign enterprises to actively innovate. Those products both from local and foreign enterprises in China are Chinese. So is innovation. That China encourages independent innovation is not related to China’s trade policy. The standard in government procurement to indentify original products is in accordance with their added value in China, which applies to all enterprises in China including foreign-invested enterprises. China is not a member of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), however, China has purchased a lot of high-tech products from foreign countries. Now, China boosts the negotiation on its entry into the GPA. And China hopes that relevant countries could recognize China’s conditions as a developing country and reduce their price so as to create opportunities for China to enter into the GPA and realize the open market in government procurement as soon as possible.

Additionally, Chen put forward four suggestions on enhancing the investment and cooperation between the two countries: firstly, boosting the cooperation in energy-saving and environmental protection and developing industrial parks that are good to ecological conservation and environment protection, encourage enterprises of the two countries to strengthen cooperation in the research and application of low-carbon economy technology, promote import of environmental-friendly technology, work out standards, training and information exchanges, and increase investment share of new energy and renewable energy. Secondly, encourage the investment promotion organizations of the two countries to enhance cooperation among small and medium-scaled enterprises of the two countries, expand the investment of Japanese service industry in China and enhance the cooperation in service outsourcing in software and information technology. Thirdly, actively promote the cooperation in agriculture of enterprises of the two countries in terms of advanced agricultural experiences of Japan. Fourthly, create better two-way investment environment, support Chinese enterprises to invest in Japan, encourage enterprises to jointly develop cooperation with the third party by full use of their own advantages.

Shoichiro Toyoda, President of Japan-China Investment Promotion Organization, stated that when coping with the economic crisis, China took the lead in getting rid of negative impacts and realizing recovery. China is not only the “world factory” but also the “world market” for its great market prospect. Japanese enterprises attach great importance to China and hope that China could play a greater role in promoting the development of the global economy. At present, China is boosting the energy-saving and environment protection, and Japanese enterprises have technological advantages in such sector. So he hoped that the two parties could enhance the cooperation in the sector and make it become the mainstay of Sino-Japan trade and economic cooperation in the future.

At the conference, Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Quality Supervision and the State Administration of Taxation elaborated on policies concerned by Japanese enterprises. And Tangshan and Dalian city gave a briefing on their investment environment respectively .

By the end of April of 2010, the number of Japan-invested enterprises in China was 42,877, with the accumulated investment of US$70.963 billion. Japan is China’s second largest foreign capital source.

Nearly 500 enterprises were established by Chinese in Japan, with a total investment of US$0.75 billion. The total value of signed contracted on labor service and contracted projects amounted to US$14.32 billion, with the turnover of US$12.85 billion.