MP back from China
Eyking meets with Chinese leaders, attends World Economic Forum with PM
Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking says recent meetings in China are being deemed a success for Canada.
Eyking, the chair of the international trade committee, spent six days in China with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a Canadian delegation, meeting with the Chinese government and business leaders.
During the meetings, the Canadian government announced a new Canada-China tourism agreement for 2018, while also working on increasing trade with goods such as seafood and agricultural products.
“We’re right in the middle of NAFTA right now, but our sights are on Asia and selling products there,” said Eyking in a phone interview on Thursday.
“We talked about seafood products and it was a preliminary for a trade agreement.”
As part of the trip, Eyking also attended the World Economic Forum in Guangzhou, which was attended by top CEOs and leaders from around the world.
“When we were at the economic forum there was a huge interest (from) younger people coming to visit Canada and experience what we experience here and take for granted,” said Eyking. “They’re not just talking
about going to big cities, they want to experience Atlantic Canada.”
Eyking said the trip was an eye-opener especially seeing how fast China and its middle class are growing.
“They’re poised to be the largest economy in the world, so the potential is huge for our products,” he said.
“They (China) are very big on the environmental side, which we were pushing in our trade agreement — we see a big opportunity for technology from Canada for clean energy.”
Eyking added he sees a huge demand in the number of Chinese students that want to come to Canada to study, especially in business programs.