China Friday night voiced its concern over the investigations carried out by Japan on imported Chinese towels, expressing strong opposition to any such restrictive moves.
China's reaction came following an announcement by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry earlier Friday that it would conduct an investigation in to Chinese towels exported to Japan.
Spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) Gao Yan pointed out that the increase in China's towel exports to Japan was moderate and a result of economic complementarity and division of trade between the two countries. It will not inflict any harm on related industries in Japan, she said.
The spokeswoman warned that Japan's limitation on Chinese textile products would damage the overall balance of mutual trade and harm the interests of Japanese investors in China.
The Chinese government hopes that Japan will abstain from executing measures harmful to bilateral trade relations for sake of facilitate bilateral trade development, she said.
China and Japan are mutually important trade partners. The trade volume between the two hit about US$83.2 billion in 2000, with a relative balance of both exports and imports.
According to Gao, textile products and clothing are China's major exports to Japan, and have played a critical role in keeping the mutual trade balance.
(People's Daily 04/07/2001)
