4th Canada China Business Forum/Gala Banquet with Stephen Harper and HU Jintao
CCBC President Peter Harder greets President HU and Prime Minister Harper
Plenary Sessions
The 4th Canada China Business Forum was held throughout the afternoon and included three plenary session panel discussions. The opening session focused on top-level strategic issues in bilateral market access. That was followed by a panel on bilateral commercialization for innovation and technology, and the final session explored hot-button trade and investment issues both the Canada and China sides. The Forum concluded with a packed networking session in which both Chinese and Canadian delegates were matched with companies on the other side they had requested to meet in a range of sectors from agri-food to new energy, oil & gas and high-tech manufacturing.
Conference Notes
Bilateral Technology Innovation and Commercialization - Greg Shea, RIM
Foreign Investment in China - Government Guidelines Update - HAN Meiqing, CCPIT
How EDC Supports Canadian Companies Operating In China - Peter Nesbitt, Export Development Canada
Intellectual Property Protection in Canada and China - Jane Clark, Gowlings
Neo at a glance - Constantine Karayannopoulos, Neo Materials
TMX at a glance - George Gao, TMX
Westport at a glance - Nicholas Sonntag, Westport Innovations
Signing Ceremonies
Feedback from our members has been very, very positive, particularly those who celebrated the day in two formal business agreement signing ceremonies attached to the Business Forum. One signing ceremony was witnessed by CCBC Chair Peter Kruyt and CCPIT Chair WAN Jifei, and the second was witnessed by Canada's Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan, Minister for Natural Resources Christian Paradis, MOFCOM Minister CHEN Deming and National Development and Reform Commission Chair ZHANG Ping.
CCBC extends its congratulations to all of the signatories. As often happens with such signings, they spurred the conclusion of negotiations. Also, I can tell you that one member firm saw their share price jump 12 per cent within a few hours of the announcement of the signing.
Gala Banquet
More than 600 guests from China and Canada gathered later in the day for the gala banquet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President HU Jintao. In his remarks, the Prime Minister graciously thanked CCBC for hosting the gala and said the ongoing work CCBC does to foster closer commercial relations between Canada and China is "important, and appreciated." President HU said in his remarks "...the CCBC and all of you present have made active contributions to deepening mutual understanding and friendship between our two peoples and pushing forward relations between our two countries. I wish to extend my heartfelt appreciation to you...". He also noted that he and the Prime Minister had agreed to double bilateral trade by mid-decade.
Despite the conflicting pressures of many important G20 commitments, a very senior group of Canadian and Chinese Ministers attended the gala. From the Canada side, those included: Finance Minister James Flaherty, Minister for International Trade Peter Van Loan, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon, Treasury Board President and Pacific Gateway Minister Stockwell Day, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism) Rob Moore and Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Gerry Ritz.
From the China side those included: Vice Premier of the State Council WANG Qishan, Head of the General Office of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) WANG Huning, Director of Policy Research for the Secretariat of the CCCPC LING Jihua, State Councilor DAI Bingguo, Minister of Foreign Affairs YANG Jiechi, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Zhang Ping, Minister of Finance XIE Xuren, Minister of Commerce CHEN Deming, and Governor of the People's Bank of China ZHOU Xiaochuan.