BEIJING (AP) – Chinese and Japanese finance ministers held talks Saturday to deepen economic cooperation that had been delayed for about two years over strained relations between the Asian giants.
Finance Minister Lou Jiwei and Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso agreed to deepen financial cooperation and support collaboration in the economic, trade and investment fields, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Lou and Aso also agreed to hold the sixth and next round of the China-Japan Finance Dialogue in Tokyo next year.
Both ministers agreed the talks help to “further advance China-Japan strategic and mutually beneficial relationship in the economic and financial fields,” according to a statement cited by Xinhua.
Saturday’s talks were the fifth round of dialogue between the finance ministers from the world’s second- and third-largest economies. The last round was held in April 2012, before relations became tense over disputing claims to islands in the East China Sea and a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2013 to a shrine that honors Japan’s World War II victims, including war criminals.