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| Bilateral Economic and Trade Relations |
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| Wednesday,November 08,2006 Posted: 10:11 BJT(0211 GMT) Toronto |
The non-governmental trade activities between China and Canada started in 1950s and the formal trade relations began with the conclusion of the wheat agreement between China and Canada in 1961. Since the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1970 and the conclusion of the inter-governmental trade agreement in 1973, the economic and trade relations between the two countries have developed smoothly and the friendly cooperation has maintained a good momentum of development. In recent years, the economic and trade relations between China and Canada attained substantial development. They developed from a single commodity trade into all-round, inter-sphere and multivariate cooperation in trade, economy and technology. With the daily frequent flow of commodities, services, personnel and capital, the economic ties between the two countries have been strengthened continuously. The bilateral agreement on China's accession to the WTO reached between China and Canada in November 1999 marked that the economic and trade relations between the two countries opened a new chapter.
According to statistics of the Chinese Customs, in 2005, the total trade volume between China and Canada was US$19.17 billion, an increase of 23.5% over the same period last year, reaching a record high. Of that, China's export was US$11.66 billion, an increase of 42.8% over that of last year, while its import was US$7.51 billion, up 2.8%. In 2005, China was the 2nd largest trade partner for Canada and Canada was the 10th largest for China (the EU and the ASEAN were treated as a whole).
The main products that China exported to Canada included machinery product, high-tech product, computers and spare parts, textiles and garments, furniture, steel product, footwear, etc. In 2005, China exported US$ 5.86 billion worth of machinery products to Canada, ranking 1st among all export commodities, accounting for 50.3% of the total. Textiles and garments were still major products that China exported to Canada, totalling US$ 2.48 billion and accounting for 21.3%.
Traditionally, the staple commodities China imported from Canada were raw materials like cereals, pulp, chemical fertilizer, paper and its products. In recent years, import of machinery products increased constantly, and machinery products has become the largest commodity China import from Canada. In 2005, China imported US$ 1.59 billion worth of machinery products from Canada, accounting about 21.2% of the total imports from Canada.
According to the Statistics Canada, past years have also seen a yearly double digit growth in the trade volume between China and the Province of Ontario, Canada. For example, the total trade volume of goods between China and Ontario in 2005 reached Can$ 16.36 billion, an increase of 20.97% over that of the previous year.
Canada began its direct investment in China in 1980. In 2005 alone, Canadian businesses invested in 964 projects in China, with the contractual investment being US$2.77 billion and actual investment amounting to US$0.45 billion. By the end of 2005, the number of Canadian invested projects in China reached 8900, with contractual investment totalling US$16.956 billion and actual investment valued at US$4.989 billion. The areas in which Canada has made investment are mainly petroleum development, mechanical industry, electronic industry, communication, chemical industry, light industry, food, textile, agriculture, aquaculture, construction design, real estate, financial and insurance industry, service industry, etc. Of them, the productive projects account for approximately 80%. Enterprises with Canadian investment are distributed in more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, including Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Fujian and Shandong.
At the same time, China’s investment in Canada developed constantly. In 2004, the Ministry of Commerce of China approved and kept on file 18 new enterprises to establish in Canada, with the total investment from the Chinese side amounting to US$ 23.48 million. In 2005, 21 new enterprises were approved and kept on file, with the Chinese investment amounting to US$ 51.09 million. By the end of 2005, 194 enterprises with Chinese investment have been established in Canada. The total volume of Chinese investment amounted to US$ 263 million. The lines of trade involved were mainly resources development, industrial production, agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery, catering trade, scientific, technological and cultural exchanges, communications and transport, consultancy, etc.
In 1983, the General Agreement between China and Canada on Developing Cooperation was signed. The cooperation between the two sides covered such areas as agriculture and forestry, energy, communications, education, communication, environmental protection, tapping human resources, structural reform and aiding the poor, etc.
Based on the development in the past decades, the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries is expected to keep on growing for many more years to come to the benefit of the peoples of the two countries.
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