(Yicai Global) June 15 -- Some 33.4 percent of Japanese companies plan to increase their business layout in China over the next one or two years, and China is their most favoured export destination, according to a white paper released by the Japanese Chamber Commerce and Industry in China yesterday.

This indicates that they do not intend to downsize or withdraw from the Chinese market, the report said, which is based on an annual poll conducted by the Japan External Trade Organization, also known as JETRO.

Just over 23 percent of Japanese companies regard China as their most important export destination, over the US, western Europe and Vietnam, according to the JETRO poll, which surveyed 720 companies from Aug. 22 to Sept. 21 last year.

The US is the country that most Japanese firms plan to do more overseas business with, at 29.6 percent, followed by Vietnam with 26.5 percent. China ranked third for the second year running at 26.4 percent.

Many Japanese companies are trading in China through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which is the first free trade agreement between the two nations. Both countries have removed tariffs on around 86 percent of the goods traded between them. China’s imports of auto parts, steel products, chemicals and home appliances enjoy big tariff cuts and those on rice wine should be reduced soon.

Just over 60 percent of the Japanese companies in China surveyed make use of free trade deals, economic partnership agreements and the generalized system of preferences, and most of them use the RCEP.

Japan issued 89,956 certificates of origin under the RCEP last year, slightly less than the 93,459 it signed under the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement. And in January and February, Japan signed the most RCEP certificates of origin among all such trade agreements.

The RCEP will enter its third year this year, and more and more Japanese firms will benefit from it, Takashima Rusuke, vice president and survey chairman of the Japanese Chamber Commerce and Industry in China, told Yicai Global.

Editor: Kim Taylor