China replaced the United States as Japan's largest trade partner in 2004, the Finance Ministry said yesterday.
The trade volume between China, including Hong Kong, and Japan in the past year totaled 22.2 trillion yen (US$213.3 billion), the highest since records began in 1947. Japanese-US trade stood at about 20.5 trillion yen in 2004. The trade with China accounted for about 20 percent in Japan's total foreign trade value, while the US share stood at about 18 percent.