Pandas, pipelines on list for Harper’s trade mission
PM plans to visit Beijing, Guangzhou and possibly Chongqing area
Prime Minister Stephen Harper may sign a handful of broad-strokes trade and investment-co-operation agreements when he visits China next week and finalize the loan of giant pandas to three Canadian zoos, according to Chinese officials and news outlets.
Harper is tentatively scheduled to visit at least three cities during his weeklong trade mission to China, including the capital of Beijing, southern trade port of Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) and possibly the southwestern hub of Chongqing.
Details of Harper’s trip to China are slowly leaking out, including through Chinese-canadian media and a statement from Chinese Ambassador Zhang Junsai.
The Prime Minister’s Office will provide an official briefing to reporters on Friday.
Harper announced last month, upon accepting the invitation to China, that he’s slated to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during his official visit. More details of the trip are now emerging, though.
The prime minister is scheduled to speak on Feb. 9 in Beijing at the Canada-china Business Forum, which will likely include a half-day conference that allows Canadian business leaders to interact with Chinese companies, according to the Canada China Business Council.
Canadian and Chinese firms with agreements to announce are also expected to hold a signing ceremony on the margins of the business forum.
The prime minister is then slated to provide the keynote address on Feb. 10 in Guangzhou to the Canada-china Business Dinner, an event sponsored by the Canadian chambers of commerce in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It’s also believed Harper will travel to the Chongqing area (which is home to a panda preservation centre), where he could announce the details of Canada accepting some giant pandas on loan from China, according to Chinese-canadian news website Canada Meet News, citing a “person in the know.”
The federal government has been finalizing an agreement with China that would see three Canadian zoos — in Calgary, Toronto and Granby, Que. — collectively “adopt” two giant pandas.
Each of the three zoos, which have been working together on the project, is likely to receive the two pandas for 18 to 24 months, government officials have previously said.
Harper will be accompanied on the trip by two Chinese-canadian Conservative MPS — Alice Wong and Wai Young — as well as Dennis Chan, chairman of Vancouver-based social services agency S.U.C.C.E.S.S., says the news website.
Ambassador Zhang expects the Harper visit will see the two countries sign “a series of co-operation agreements” — possibly on energy and foreign investment, he hints — that will provide “a more stable and predictable legal and policy framework,” he says in a statement on his embassy’s website.
State-owned Chinese petroleum companies have invested billions of dollars into the Alberta oilsands over the past few years. The Harper government has been promoting additional pipeline capacity to the West Coast — such as the proposed Northern Gateway project — to ship oil and gas to Asia and diversify Canada’s energy exports beyond just the United States.
“The two countries have every reason to forge a stable and win-win partnership in the long run in the field of resources,” the ambassador says, noting Harper is expected to also bring a number of Canadian business leaders on the trip.