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Provincial and municipal officials from China and Japan agreed to promote regional cooperation with each other at the Fifth Beijing-Tokyo Forum yesterday.
"By exchanging ideas and experiences cities in both countries can improve their management systems a great deal," Hiroya Masuda, former Japanese minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, said at a sub-forum in the port city of Liaoning province.
"Most cities face similar problems and the problems can only be solved by learning from each other's experiences and mistakes," Masuda said.
He added that the forum should promote more detailed projects in various aspects of bilateral cooperation, such as environment protection and public facilities.
Tao Siliang, vice-president of China Association of Mayors,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], said city-level ties, with proper communication between mayors, should remain unaffected even when ties between the two countries are going through a turbulent patch.
Tao said the mayors in China have a strong sense of responsibility now. "They have started paying attention to the impact on environment while striving for higher GDP growth."
Dai Yulin, vice-mayor of Dalian,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], said his city had cooperated well with Japanese cities and enterprises, adding that there were nearly "4,000 Japan-backed companies and eight offices of Japanese autonomous prefectures" in Dalian as of May this year.
The city's software and service outsourcing sector, which exported goods worth over $1 billion in 2008, is mainly Japan-oriented,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], thanks to the software park Dalian set up in Japan last year, he said.
Dai said Dalian will continue to cooperate with the autonomous prefectures and set up a platform for Japanese companies to enter the Chinese market.
Kyoto Prefectural Governor Keiji Yamada said that his city had a long history of friendship with China, especially with regard to tourism.
"Kyoto is one of the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists," he said. "Of the nearly 1 million Chinese tourists to Japan in 2008, 370,000 visited Kyoto."
Yamada said bilateral communication should not be limited to economics.
"For example," he said, "Kyoto is home to many famous universities. We hope to promote educational cooperation with Chinese cities as well.
"The cooperation should be further extended to a comprehensive level from the existing fields of economy, tourism, and education," Yamada said.