| Canwest News Service |
Monday, November 03, 2008
BEIJING - In a bid to energize Canada's flagging relations with China, four premiers leading a trade mission of 100-plus business people signed more than a score of deals and agreements with Chinese companies Monday, worth over $110 million.
The premiers decided last summer not to wait any longer for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to take the initiative to boost trade with the Asian giant.
They came here under the auspices of the Council of the Federation and they now hope Harper will follow up on their lucrative work.
"We are really pleased to come here on our own as premiers, but at the end of the day, we would love to see our prime minister come here as well," Ontario's Dalton McGuinty said after the first day of meetings.
Harper has never visited China, but promised during the election campaign that he would come - but didn't say when.
McGuinty, who has been to China three times in the past four years, said he would welcome Harper's visit "sooner rather than later."
Moncton Flight College scored the biggest deal of the day, signing a $65-million contract with China's Beihang Flight College that will see 600 to 700 Chinese student pilots trained in Moncton and Fredericton by 2014.
New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham was clearly pleased with the day's coup and looking forward to more.
"It leads to economic prosperity in our province," he said.
McGuinty, Graham, Manitoba's Gary Doer, P.E.I.'s Robert Ghiz and Pierre Marc Johnson, who is leading the Quebec delegation in lieu of Premier Jean Charest, who went on election footing last week and pulled out, met with the vice-governors of the Chinese provinces of Hebei, Henan, Hunan and Shandong.
Together, the governors represent 350 million Chinese, almost 50 million more consumers than in the U.S., Canada's largest trading partner.
The premiers were understandably awed by the prospect of doing business with them.
Graham said that as the U.S. economy slows, "it is imperative New Brunswick and Canada continue to look abroad for opportunity."
The business people in the delegation were drawn from the several sectors, including education, environment, agri-food and transportation. The Canada-China Business Council, which is hosting the mission, matched them with appropriate Chinese businesses and throughout the day they held a series of workshops, information sessions and private meetings.
The Canadian businessmen on the mission are a mixed bag, representing big and small companies, with some new to China and some already doing business here. The common denominator is that they are all looking for opportunities and happy for the leg-up a political trade mission can give them.
Corey Diamond, president of Summerhill Group, an environmental company in Toronto with 45 full-time employees, is new to the China scene and hoping to make contacts and establish a relationship that might allow him to expand his company overseas.
By contrast, Hugh MacDiarmid, president at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., is already doing business here but still happy with the doors a political mission like this can open for him.
For AECL, "it creates a venue, it creates an opportunity," he said.
"There is no question that geo-politics enters into nuclear reactors, so it is very important for senior political leaders to be part of the whole process."
AECL has two CANDU reactors currently in operation in Shanghai, but is looking "to be part of the growth" as China expands from its existing nine reactors to, perhaps, 50 or more by 2030.
The premiers and businessmen move on to the mega-city of Chongqing Tuesday to meet with more Chinese politicians and companies and end their mission in Shanghai on Thursday.
