(Bloomberg) – China has promised to improve the environment for foreign companies, the head of Japan’s largest business lobby said after meeting with the prime minister. Li Qiangthe latest manifestation of the Chinese government's efforts to soar emotions.
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“It was a meaningful meeting,” Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, known as Keidanren, told reporters in Beijing.
According to Tokura, Li spoke about the friendship between Japan and China and said that the Ministry of Commerce is leading efforts to improve the business situation.
The Chinese government has been pushing to bring back foreign investment in recent months, with President Xi Jinping's government taking more “heart-warming” measures such as making it easier for foreigners to obtain visas and giving them easier access to financial and electronic payment services. is promised.
This comes after foreign investment in China turned negative in the third quarter of last year for the first time since at least 1998, further increasing the challenges facing the economy, including slowing growth and deflation.
Japan is one of the largest foreign investors in China, and a group of about 200 Japanese executives is in Beijing to meet with Chinese leaders and officials to discuss economic ties. Investment from Japan has slowed in recent years, with the pandemic, diplomatic tensions and the arrest of a Japanese businessman last year all contributing to weakening ties.
The delegation will meet with officials from the National Development and Reform Commission on Wednesday and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao later on Thursday. According to Ken Kobayashi, a member of the delegation, Li told the visitors that the ministry is making efforts to listen to foreign companies.
According to a Japan-China Economic Association official who briefed reporters after the debate, the group called on China to once again allow Japanese nationals to enter the country without visas, which had been in place since before the pandemic. Lee said that while people-to-people exchanges are important, he also called for reciprocity.
Over the past year, China has granted visa-free entry to citizens of at least 11 countries, most of which were unilateral decisions that did not give their citizens the same rights. According to Japanese media, the Chinese government has asked Tokyo to allow Japanese nationals to enter the country without visas, as a condition of allowing visa-free entry to Japan.
During the roughly hour-long talks, Japanese representatives raised a number of thorny issues, including concerns about the safety of their citizens in China and a ban on imports of seafood and other food products.
(Update meeting details.)
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