On the morning of January 25, 2024, Premier Li Qiang of the State Council met with a visiting Japanese business delegation, led by Chairman of the Japan Business Federation Tokura Masakazu, Chairman of the Japan-China Economic Association Kosei Shindo, and Chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ken Kobayashi, at the Great Hall of the People. More than 200 heads of major Japanese companies were present.

Li Qiang said, China-Japan relations are currently at a crucial stage of carrying on the past heritage and opening up the future. In November last year, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a meeting in San Francisco and reached a series of important common understandings, providing important strategic guidance for the development of bilateral relations. All sectors in China and Japan should work together to revisit the original aspiration of the normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries, stay committed to the right direction of peace, friendship and cooperation, implement the political consensus that "the two countries should be partners, not threats", and bring China-Japan relations back to the track of sound development. Li Qiang expressed the hope that Japan can properly handle issues of principle such as history and Taiwan.

Li Qiang pointed out that the economies of China and Japan are deeply integrated, and economic and trade cooperation plays an important role as the ballast and propeller of bilateral relations. China is ready to work with Japan to fully tap cooperation potential, continue to share development opportunities, support enterprises of the two countries to strengthen cooperation in fields such as scientific and technological innovation, digital economy, green development, medical care and elderly services, jointly ensure stable and unimpeded industrial and supply chains, and achieve complementarity of a higher level and win-win results. Li Qiang expressed the hope that the Japanese business community will play a positive role in the win-win cooperation between China and Japan. Adhering to the fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world, China will continue to pare the negative list for foreign investment, fully implement the lifting of restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing sector, protect the national treatment of foreign enterprises, and continuously work to build a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment. China welcomes companies from Japan and other countries to continue investing in China. He also expressed the hope that Japan will provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises in Japan.

Noting that Japan and China are important neighbors, the heads of the three business groups from Japan expressed the hope that the two countries will steer back to the original aspiration for friendship, strengthen close exchanges in all sectors and at all levels, and build constructive and stable Japan-China relations on the basis of strategic mutual benefit. China is an important driving force for world economic development. The Japanese business community is deeply encouraged by the sound and steady growth of China's economy and is willing to deepen cooperation with China in such fields as economy and trade, environmental protection, green economy and medical rehabilitation, promote personnel exchanges between the two sides, and jointly advance regional economic cooperation, so as to make positive contributions to the development of Japan-China relations and peace and prosperity of Asia and the world.

Wu Zhenglong attended the meeting.