TOKYO, June 13 -- Major tourism-related institutions from China and Japan have held a seminar on tourism cooperation in the Japanese city of Nagoya, seeking to further strengthen the cultural and tourism cooperation between the two countries in the future.

At the seminar held on Tuesday, China's Jiangsu Province and Dunhuang City and Japan's Aichi Prefecture, Ishikawa Prefecture and Gifu City introduced their local tourism and cultural resources. More than 180 people attended the event, including representatives of tourism-related enterprises and institutions of China and Japan and people from bilateral friendship groups.

Yang Xian, Chinese consul general in Nagoya, said in her speech that cultural and tourism exchanges between China and Japan are an important form of mutual learning among civilizations and an important bridge to promote the building of China-Japan relations that meet the requirements of the new era.

The seminar reflected the expectation of the central region of Japan and the local provinces and cities in China to strengthen exchanges and cooperation, Yang said, adding it is hoped that the event would enhance the mutual understanding between the two peoples and promote deeper people-to-people exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation in a wider range of fields.

Ouyang An, director of Tokyo office of the China National Tourism Office, said that through cultural and tourism exchanges, Chinese and Japanese people can visit each other's countries and not only experience different cultural histories, but also feel the warmth and friendliness of the people.

Japanese guests including Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura and Yoshinobu Ota, tourism director at Chubu District Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, attended the seminar. They said the central region of Japan has long attached great importance to relations with China, and the two sides have frequent friendly exchanges, active cultural exchanges and close economic and trade cooperation, noting central Japan is willing to actively leverage its local advantages to further strengthen friendly exchanges with various parts of China, deepen cultural and tourism cooperation, and expand personnel exchanges.

Representatives from Japan's travel agencies also said that the richness and quality of China's tourism resources are among the best in the world, and they are exploring how to make good use of social media to showcase the charm of modern China to Japanese young people.