On August 28, due to poor health, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his resignation. As the longest serving prime minister, Japan will enter a post Abe era after his resignation. In recent years, China Japan relations have returned to the right track and made new development. Leaders of the two countries have reached an important consensus, pointing out the direction for strengthening bilateral economic and trade cooperation. In the post Abe era, what is the trend of Sino Japanese economic and trade relations? In response, the reporter of China trade daily interviewed Ju Wenyong, the general representative of CCPIT's representative office in Japan. In Ju Wenyong's view, China and Japan are both the world's major economies and important economic and trade partners with each other. The economies of China and Japan are highly complementary, and the industrial chain and supply chain are highly integrated. They are optimistic about the future economic and trade relations between China and Japan.
"In the face of the impact of the epidemic, China Japan economic and trade cooperation has shown strong resilience." Ju Wenyong said that China's demand has played a supporting role in Japan's exports. After the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia, Japan's exports to China revived at the earliest. According to trade statistics released by Japan's Ministry of finance, in terms of amount, Japan's export to China began to narrow after reaching 8.7% in March, and in June, its export to China returned to a level of 0.2% year-on-year decrease. In addition, Japan's medical protective equipment is highly dependent on China. In May, the proportion of medical masks imported by Japan from China reached 96%, an increase of 16 percentage points compared with January.
According to Ju Wenyong's observation, the export volume of some Japanese industries to China has reached a new high. Driven by China's demand, some industries show signs of stopping falling. For example, in corrugated base paper, Japan's main export regions of corrugated base paper are China and Southeast Asia. From January to May this year, its export volume to China was six times higher than that in the same period in 2019, reaching 87000 tons, accounting for 30% of the total export volume. Factors such as the expansion of China's online shopping market promoted the increase of Japanese corrugated base paper export; in terms of auto parts, Japan's auto parts export in July was the same 7%, but less than 11% in May. Novel coronavirus pneumonia China has been reproduced by China's auto factories, which has made MITSUBA exports to China, which is engaged in engine start-up motors and other businesses, has recovered to the level before the new crown pneumonia epidemic.
It is understood that in the first half of this year, in the face of the impact of the epidemic, the volume of bilateral trade between China and Japan and Japan's investment in China have remained stable. Japanese enterprises in China have fully resumed their work and production, and their production capacity has steadily recovered. 350 new Japanese enterprises have set up in China, and Rosen (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and other Japanese enterprises have further expanded their investment in China. Meanwhile, according to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, from January to July this year, the bilateral trade volume between China and Japan decreased by 2.2% compared with the same period of last year, and the decline rate was 0.7% narrower than that from January to June, and the import and export volume in a single month has resumed the growth trend since March.
In addition to the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, China and Japan supported each other and helped each other, showing "solid mountains and rivers, the same wind and the moon" and "solid wood and peach trees, and the solid friendship between Qiong Yao". Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said at a news conference recently that the total volume of bilateral trade between China and Japan in 2019 exceeded 310 billion US dollars, and Japan's accumulated actual investment in China exceeded 110 billion US dollars, ranking the first in China's total utilization of foreign investment. China's investment in Japan has developed steadily and the investment field has been continuously widened. The two sides carried out effective exchanges on macroeconomic policies under the high-level telephone system between China and Japan, and actively promoted the third-party market cooperation, innovation cooperation and service trade cooperation. Japanese enterprises have actively participated in the China International Import Expo. The two sides have maintained communication and coordination on multilateral and regional issues and worked together to safeguard the multilateral trade system.
"It can be seen that the economy of China and Japan is highly complementary, which also shows the strong resilience and great potential of China Japan economic and trade cooperation. Moreover, Japan's economic policy has a certain continuity in the short term. The key to the development of economic and trade relations between the two countries is to expand the common interests of the two countries. " Ju Wenyong is optimistic about the economic and trade relations between China and Japan in the post Abe era. He said that he expected the new cabinet of Japan to devote itself to building long-term friendly international relations, continuously deepen cooperation with China in fighting the epidemic and economic and social development, and make due contributions to getting rid of the impact of the epidemic and returning to the growth track of the global economy.
Novel coronavirus pneumonia and the international situation are uncertain. For enterprises, it is necessary to strengthen risk control, actively study and judge market demand changes, timely adjust production plan and sales mode, and make full use of the help policy.