Canada-China Investment Summit 2012, co-hosted by CCCICA and APF on October 8-9 2012, is aiming to facilitate Chinese investment in Canada by helping China’s private companies better understand Canada’s investment environment.

This event has brought together around 350 private sector leaders from China and Canada, as well as policymakers to provide timely information on the investment environment in Canada, with a special focus on western provinces, offering networking opportunities for Chinese investments to meet with potential Canadian partners to explore business opportunities in Canada.

B.C. premier Christy Clark has been a keynote speaker who sincerely hopes to see expanding business cooperation prosper between Canada and China. In her keynote address, she said that as the world’s “economic heartbeat moves to Asia”, it was vital for Canada to promote trade with China, which was a key agenda of her government.

The past 11 months have seen two trade missions from China visit B.C., and the region’s exports to the world second economy have grown to CAD 2.8 billion (USD 2.69 billion), up by nearly 25 percent from last year of 2011.

“Chinese investors want to see significant returns on the investments, and they want to see them in a timely fashion,” she said.

In the speech, Clark also promoted the western province’s budding natural gas industry, as its first liquefied gas facilities on the coastal area are scheduled to export gas by 2020.

Co-chair David Teng expressed at the forum that the target of this summit was to provide a platform for Chinese small,medium-sized enterprises to “go out” seeking business opportunities, and meanwhile make Canadian counterparts get a better understanding of what interests Chinese investors.

The summit turned out to be very fruitful witnessing 4 cooperation agreements signed by 8 companies from China and Canada .

Vancouver-based Russell Brewing Company agreed to create a Russell Breweries China Inc with its Chinese partners, and Beijing Dream Lighting City Culture Development Co Ltd, a designing company from China, decided to work with the David Robinson Studio Inc and CCCICA for designing the Valley of the Emperor in western China. Besides, China Council for Promotion of International Trade, the Asia Pacific Foundation and Jack Justin Centre would work together to study the development of China’s global investment.