Japan is China’s greatest trade partner, while China remains as the second biggest to Japan. According to the statistics of the Chinese Customs, the China-Japan trade volume in the year 2000 was US$83.166 billion, 25.7% bigger than the year before. China's export to and import from Japan recorded US$41.654 billion and US$41.512 million, increasing respectively by 28.5% and 22.9% compared with those of the previous year.

(2) Japanese Direct Investment in China

In the first part of 2001, Japan's investment in China enjoyed a relatively fast speed. The agreed investment was US$2.9 billion and the actual figure was US$1.9 billion, up 86% and 26% respectively compared with the same period of the year before.

Up till the end of 2000, there were 20,340 Japanese investment projects in China with a total of US$38.634 billion and an actual figure of US$28.161 billion.

(3) Japanese Government Funded Financial and Technology Cooperation

a. Japanese Governmental Loan to China

The annual Japanese governmental loans to China accounted for over 40%, which ranked the first, of all the financial cooperation between other foreign governments and China. Since the year of 1979, Japan had provided four batches of governmental loans to China, adding up to an amount of 2.646137 trillion Japanese Yen.

b. Energy Loans

From 1979 to March 1995, Japan provided three batches of energy loans to China, totaling at 1.7 trillion Japanese Yen.

The volume of the first batch of energy loans:

420 billion Japanese Yen.

The volume of the second batch of energy loans:

580 billion Japanese Yen.

The volume of the third batch of energy loans:

700 billion Japanese Yen.

c. Japanese Free Aid

From 1979 to March, 2000, the Japanese government provided China with free aid totaling at 1.15356 trillion Japanese Yen.

d. Trade Surplus Loans

In 1988 and 1994 respectively, Japanese Export & Import Bank provided 2 batches of loans, totaling at 140 billion Japanese Yen.