TIANJIN, CHINA - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Saturday visited Tianjin, one of China’s fastest-growing cities, with the hopes of Tokyo’s business leaders on his shoulders.
Fukuda, who is on his second official day of a four-day tour in China, held talks and lunched with the top official of Tianjin, Zhang Gaoli.
Fukuda told Zhang that he expresses “gratitude towards the Tianjin government for supporting the activities of Japanese companies here,” the Japanese embassy in China said in a statement.
Zhang, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party in Tianjin, told Fukuda that he wishes to make Tianjin a showcase city of Japan-China cooperation in environmental protection and energy-saving, it said.
Tianjin, an investment hub north of Beijing, is the hometown of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, “which is also politically important,” a Japanese trade ministry official told reporters, adding a senior Japanese diplomat had recommended Fukuda visit the city.
Many Japanese companies including car giant Toyota Motor Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial, Panasonic-brand electronics maker, have invested in Tianjin.
“I’m eager to watch Tianjin as a rapidly developing city,” Fukuda said at the start of the lunch.
Later on in the day, Fukuda visited a car-building plant operated by a joint venture between Toyota and China’s First Automobile Works (FAW).
Fukuda told Chinese leaders on Friday that improving the environment for investment by foreign companies is important.
Japanese business leaders had lobbied politicians to improve ties with China during and after the 2001-2006 period of Junichiro Koizumi’s premiership, when bilateral ties hit rock-bottom due to Koizumi’s visits to a war shrine associated with Japan’s past militarism.
Japan is the biggest foreign investor in China and trade between the two nations was worth 207.35 billion dollars last year, up 12.4 percent from 2005.
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