TOKYO, Nov. 16 -- Business leaders and former high-ranking officials from China and Japan have called for building bilateral relations suiting the new era at the ninth round of Sino-Japanese Entrepreneurs and Former High-level Officials Dialogue held in the Japanese capital.

A joint statement issued after the two-day dialogue concluded on Wednesday said that creating a free and open business environment is indispensable to post-COVID-19 economic recovery, and that it is necessary to uphold and strengthen international economic order and reform the World Trade Organization (WTO) for it to play an improved role.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a video address that over the past 45 years, economic exchanges have become the cornerstone of Japan-China relations, and he looks forward to more concrete cooperation projects through this dialogue.

Bi Jingquan, executive vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), expressed the hope that the entrepreneurs on both sides would earnestly implement the principled consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, jointly identify the challenges facing bilateral economic and trade ties, and further expand cooperation in green development, new energy vehicles, and medical and healthcare, among other fields.

Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, the country's most powerful business lobby group better known as Keidanren, said that Japan and China should expand economic cooperation in the new era, with actively carrying out dialogues engaging all sectors of the society to enhance mutual understanding.

Launched in November 2015, the dialogue is jointly sponsored by the CCIEE and Keidanren, aimed at providing a platform for communication between entrepreneurs and former officials of the two countries.