China and Japan have agreed to start expert-level consultations on operating charter flights between Tokyo's Haneda airport and Shanghai's Hongqiao airport, a senior official from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) said yesterday

The consensus was reached after Japan's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba held a series of talks with Chinese officials, including State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, on a visit to Beijing over the weekend, Wu Zhouhong, deputy director of the CAAC's Department of International Co-operation, told China Daily.

The plan is considered part of efforts by the two neighbours to boost tourism exchanges and achieve the target agreed in November to increase the number of bilateral people exchanges to 5 million or more in 2007, the 35th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral relations.

During his meeting with Fuyushiba on Sunday, Tang said the two countries "have already broken the five-year-long political stalemate and brought bilateral ties to the normal track of development," referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ice-breaking China visit in October.

Currently, Japanese visitors to China far outnumber Chinese to Japan, with the figures last year standing at 3.39 million and 650,000 respectively.

But Chinese visitors to Japan have risen this year to 850,000, Fuyushiba was quoted by Japan's Kyodo News Agency as saying, adding he hopes the figure next year will reach 1.3-1.4 million.

On Sunday, Kyodo quoted anonymous sources as saying the two countries are working to materialize a visit to Japan by Premier Wen Jiabao in late March or in April.

The two nations are also studying a visit to Japan by President Hu Jintao in the latter half of next year, the report said.

(China Daily 12/05/2006 page2)