Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to members of the business community in Beijing on Saturday. Harper is expected to ink a currency trading deal with China as early as Saturday. Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press BEIJING — The Conservative government will sign a currency deal as early as Saturday with China that should help Canadian businesses do business here.
In a speech Saturday to the Canada China Business Council, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also referred to the National Hockey League’s interest in accepting a Chinese offer to establish business relations.
There may be NHL games played in China as early as next fall, TSN has reported, and four business representatives of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment have flown to Beijing this weekend.
” I must say in passing, how delighted I am to learn that our great Canadian game, hockey, now has a following here in China.” Harper said Saturday at the business luncheon. “I’m told you even have NHL games on your television.
“I know you’re also bidding for the 2022 Winter Games. So we’ll watch how that goes, and we’ll see you on the ice!”
Harper later posed for formal photographs with Canadian and Chinese business leaders in attendance.
Perrin Beatty, who heads the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, predicted Canada’s currency hub deal with China, which is to be announced later Saturday, would save Canadian businesses billions of dollars.
“It will be less costly and easier for Canadian companies to do business in China,” the former federal cabinet minister said. “Things like this (the currency deal) are critically essential to us…. It’s a burgeoning market and they need everything we can produce.”
The currency trading hub will be based in Toronto. As reported by the National Post’s John Ivison last week, it will allow Canadian companies to trade directly in Chinese currency. As it is, Canadian money must first be changed to U.S. dollars and then into yuan.
The savings to Canadian and Chinese companies buying and selling in China is expected to be worth several billion dollars a year. It would be the first such arrangement in North America, although they do exist in Europe and the Middle East.
In a sign of the breadth and growing depth of Canada’s business relationship with China, Canadian companies signed 20 commercial deals — as Harper watched — here on Saturday that had an announced combine value of $1.1 billion.
The contracts and memoranda of understanding covered subjects such as water and air pollution technologies and ways for Canadian technologies to help to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.
There were also agreements on developing cockpit avionics for airliners with a Chinese aviation company and for precise measuring devices for steel rolling equipment and waterproof concrete.
Also included were contracts to sell canola to Canada, export potash from Saskatchewan and for the design of several conference centres in China.
The announcement on the currency exchange is expected on a weekend when the Harper government is promising a blitz of economic deals with China. However, there has been scant information in advance about what these new arrangements might be.
Harper is to meet on Sunday with President Xi Jinping on the margins of the APEC leaders’ summit. Harper is scheduled to leave before the summit really begins to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies Tuesday in Ottawa.
If the expected deal is finalized it will be one more example of how Canada has re-established solid economic ties with China, which were hurt for several years by Canadian criticisms of China’s human rights record.
Addressing that prickly issue in his speech to the Canada China Business Council, the prime minister said: “Even as we acknowledge openly and discuss frankly the matters on which we disagree, we nevertheless find common aspirations in providing jobs and prosperity to our citizens.”
During the first full day of his four-day visit to China on Friday, Harper, with a large group of Canadian businessmen in tow, met with business leaders in the port city of Hangzhou. Among those that Harper spent time with was Jack Ma, an Internet entrepreneur and China’s wealthiest citizen.
Harper did bring up the issue of religious freedoms with Communist officials in Hangzhou, who have destroyed several churches and crosses. But that subject has been very much on the back burner during the visit.
That is something that has cheered the Canadian business leaders here as they have regarded Canadian criticisms of China’s human rights record as unhelpful to their dealings here. Harper has been lauded by the Canadian business delegation for coming to China and meeting directly with the top Chinese leadership.
“The government-to-government relationship is so important in China,” said Guy Nelson, CEO of Empire Industries Ltd. of Toronto, which builds theatres and roller coasters in Asia and around the world. “There have been some irritants between the two countries so it is important to have face-to-face meetings. Impediments are not good and need to be resolved.”
The problems were “easy to fix,” said Nelson, whose company has built the Harry Potter ride for Universal Studios. “We have to recognize China for the country if wants to be or is already and not impose our values. How they wish to run their country is their business.”
“There are cities like this all over China,” said David Curtis of Viking Air Ltd. of Victoria which sells Twin Otter aircraft. “It is important to have your products here.”
Viking’s Otters were not the kind of product to attract major interest in China for its iconic aircraft when companies such as Boeing and Airbus were such big players in the Chinese market. But once the Twin Otter was certified by Chinese authorities Viking hoped to sell as many as 400 aircraft here over the next 10 years, Curtis said.
One of the places which he thought would be ideal for the float plane variant of the Otter was Shanghai, which like Vancouver has waterfront, Curtis said.
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