Official: SMEs in Guangdong, Japan should expand ties

A senior official from Guangdong urged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the southern Chinese province and Japan to further expand their cooperation.

He Zuoxian, deputy director-general of Guangdong SME Bureau, said myriad of opportunities have been created for expansion of cooperation as the province is seeking to expand global ties and import more foreign high technologies to further upgrade its technology and production.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the China-Japan (Guangdong) SME Forum which took place in Guangzhou on Wednesday.

Guangdong, one of the country's economic powerhouses, relies on non-governmental economic development to support its sustainable economic growth.

And SMEs are playing an increasingly important role in Guangdong's economic construction, he said.

According to official statistics, Guangdong's GDP reached more than 8.99 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) last year, accounting for 10.5 percent of the country's total.

Out of which the non-governmental economy, mainly the province's many SMEs, contributed 4.83 trillion yuan in 2017, representing 53.8 percent of the province's total.

Guangdong has already established close economic ties with Japan in the past decades. Three major carmakers from Japan, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, have all established their production facilities in Guangdong.

More than 752 Japanese SMEs have attended the China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair (CISMEF) which is held in the Guangdong provincial capital annually in the previous four years. He is also director-general of the Bureau of CISMEF.

The Japanese companies displayed a wide range of products from electronics, medicines to food to expand their cooperation with Chinese counterparts, as well as increase their sales in the mainland market, He said.

Liu Renchen, deputy president of the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, said cooperation between China and Japan has great potential.

"The operation is a win-win deal, as China needs to import more new and high technologies and equipment to support its economic development while Japan relies much on the vast Chinese market to expand," Liu said.

"SMEs from Japan can further increase their presence in the world market via expanding their business in the mainland which has become the second largest economy in the world," he added.

Around 400 government officials, diplomats, enterprisers and business executives from both countries attended the forum.