Former Japanese prime minister Toshiki Kaifu said China's World Trade Organization (WTO) membership will create huge business opportunities to the Japanese and ROK business circles, and will help turn the enormous business potential of the Chinese market into reality.

Kaifu, who was in the port city of Weihai in east China's Shandong province for the just-concluded Northeast Asian Economic Forum, explained that China's WTO entry has, and will continue to make it easier for Japanese and ROK companies and products to enter the vast Chinese market.

"In the long run, future economic development in northeast Asia will go ahead with that in China, thus bringing about positive impact on the economies of Japan and other neighboring countries," he said.

However, he said, "a group of people in Japan regard the rapid development of the manufacturing industry and other Chinese sectors as a kind of threat."

"In my view, Japan and other neighboring countries should not irresponsibly consider it as a threat," Kaifu said. "On the contrary, we should devote ourselves thoroughly to economic development, complement each other with the unique advantage of each side and achieve common prosperity."

Former ROK prime minister Hong-Koo Lee said economic and trade relations and scientific and cultural exchanges between the ROK and China have been expanding very rapidly since the two countries established diplomatic ties a decade ago. The two countries and Japan enjoy broad prospects for economic cooperation.

Koga Kensuke, vice-chairman of the Japan-China Economic Association, believes that after its WTO entry, China will, as promised, lower its tariffs, gradually dismantle its import quota system, ease investment restrictions and continue to open its market to overseas investors, including Japan.

Kim Jae Chul, chairman of the Korea Trade Association, said as China is becoming one of the world's centers of manufacturing, tourism, logistics and financial service, its economic exchanges with its neighbors will expand.

Entrepreneurs and experts attending the forum agree that Japan and the ROK should expand economic cooperation with China, strive for common development through accelerating industrial restructuring and maximize mutual interests through economic interdependence and specialization.

They have called on the three countries, whose economies complement each other to a big extent, for coordinated efforts in exploiting their own advantages, namely Japan's cutting-edge manufacturing technology and abundant capital resources, China's rich natural resources, cheap and sufficient labor resources and vast market, and the ROK's advanced manufacturing technology and its experience of industrialization and industrial restructuring.

Closer economic cooperation between the three neighboring countries will enable them to make greater contribution to economic development in Asia and the world as a whole, they said.

On trade disputes between Asian countries, Zhang Xuwu, vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, said China will gradually open up more industries to overseas investment after its WTO entry, including telecommunications, banking, tourism, agriculture and other service sectors. This will create more business and investment opportunities for overseas investors and businessmen, including those from other northeast Asian countries.

He added the moves will bring about increased market competition and industrial specification, involving competition between Chinese and overseas companies on the international market and those between overseas-funded companies in China.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2002)