TOKYO – Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. and Chinese company Tencent are working on a joint venture to help Japanese companies market their goods and services to Chinese consumers to replace lost sales as a result. of the lack of incoming Chinese tourists, said Nikkei learned.

The new company will produce and promote e-commerce stores, advertising and video content on Tencent’s WeChat platform on behalf of Japanese corporate clients. Although such marketing activities are commonly practiced on WeChat by Chinese companies, Japanese small and medium-sized businesses are not used to the application procedures and system adjustments required.

Mitsui and Tencent are in discussions over the details of the joint venture. The Japanese company is expected to own more than half of the shares.

Chinese tourists have been big spenders in Japan in recent years, picking up local products for their high quality when visiting the country. But that source of consumption has been shut down amid border restrictions spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.

Customer information would be stored in a data center in Japan owned by Tencent, which would bolster the Chinese company’s cloud services in Japan through Mitsui.

Tencent’s tie-up with Mitsui follows a partnership with Tokyo Electric Power Company late last year in electricity sales.

The collection of big data by Chinese tech giants is part of the Sino-US political tensions. According to Mitsui, the new service with Tencent would not involve the collection of personal information or other actions monitored by the US government.