The number of Chinese students funded by the government to study in Japan has increased in recent years, an overseas study expert said.

Zhang Ning, deputy secretary-general of the China Scholarship Council, said the number increased to 738 in 2015 from 569 in 2013.

Zhang was speaking at the 2016 China-Japan University Forum, which was hosted in Beijing by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

According to Zhang, the increase was mainly due to a growing number of undergraduates and joint degree PhD students. He said PhD students have long been well represented among students supported by the government for studies in Japan.

"From 2013 to 2015, 831 PhD students went to Japan, 47 percent of all those supported by the government to study in that country," Zhang said.

Jiang Yundou, who teaches Japanese at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics in Dalian, Liaoning province, said the growing number of government-funded students sent to Japan meshes with the country's development strategy.

"China has long paid great attention to nurturing talent by sending people to study in other countries, including Japan," he said.

According to Zhang, the CSC supported 26,000 people in 2015 (not including those who had received CSC scholarships before but were still studying) in their overseas studies, 25 percent more than the previous year. Among them, almost 20,000 were visiting scholars, postdoctoral students and joint degree PhD students.

Kazuo Todani, an official at Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, said Chinese students now make up 40 percent of all international and exchange students in Japan.

He also said the ministry would continue to support the Young Leaders' Program, a scholarship program of the Japanese government to foster future leaders in Asia, while deepening the students' understanding of Japan.