TOKYO, Japan -- Japan and China signed an agreement Wednesday lifting Beijing's four-year ban on Japanese rice, paving the way for Tokyo to resume rice exports to China within the next few months, agricultural officials said.

Japanese Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka and Li Changjiang, a top Chinese food-inspection official, signed the agreement hours before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was to arrive in Japan for a three-day visit.

China banned imports of Japanese rice in 2003 after changing its quarantine standards, saying Japanese rice posed a danger of bringing foreign insects into China.

Wen's visit is the first by a Chinese premier since 2000. His trip is aimed at enhancing the Asian neighbors' improving ties following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's fence-mending visit to Beijing in October.

Wen was to head straight to Abe's office for talks on issues ranging from rice to disputes over history and territory.

Japan hopes its rice exports will grow as a result of rising demand from Chinese consumers for sushi and other Japanese food, ministry official Takanobu Urata said.

China will only allow rice imports from selected rice-processing plants that pass inspections by Japan's agricultural ministry and visiting Chinese inspectors, Urata said.

Japanese officials are hoping to ready the first shipments by around July to Beijing and Shanghai, ministry officials quoted Matsuoka as saying.

Japan exported only 900 tons of rice last year and imported 70,000 tons from the United States, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand and China under a World Trade Organization import quota.