"The construction of the oil pipeline, leading from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean opens big prospects," Putin said at a meeting of 500 Russian and Japanese business leaders in Tokyo. "We are going to lead it to the Pacific coast for bringing energy resources to the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan," he said, adding that the project would significantly strengthen the energy infrastructure of the entire region. Putin, in Tokyo for a three-day visit that included a summit with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, also encouraged Japanese companies to invest more in Russia, noting that Japan accounts for only 1% of accumulated foreign investment. He was also expected to win Japanese backing for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. Russia, which has to strike separate deals with WTO members as a condition for joining the 148-member global trade body, has launched economic and legal reforms in order to qualify for the membership. It has yet to negotiate a deal with the United States. Tokyo has voiced a strong interest in a pipeline that would transport oil to Russia's Pacific coast for export to Japan, while China, also avidly seeking Russian oil to drive its booming economy, has pushed for an alternate route. The heads of Russia's gas monopoly, Gazprom, and the state oil company Rosneft, accompanied Mr Putin on his Japan tour, and said they hoped to soon see oil flowing to the Pacific region. "We hope that by 2008, the first section of the pipeline, with a capacity of 30 million tons (of crude oil), will become operational," Rosneft CEO Serguei Bogdanchikov said, adding that his company would contribute two-thirds of that capacity (20 million tons) from three oilfields in Eastern Siberia. "By 2015, Russia will provide 50 million tons of hydrocarbon fuel to the Pacific market," Mr Bogdanchikov added. Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller said his company was also considering pipelines to provide gas to countries in the Pacific region.