VANCOUVER, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Cultural linkages are the way forward to strengthening economic ties between China and Canada's province of British Columbia (B.C.), the provincial finance minister said Thursday.
Speaking to the Chinese media in the Vancouver suburb city of Richmond, Mike de Jong, who has recently added the title of minister responsible for multiculturalism to his portfolio, said economic opportunities and the western province's multicultural community, which includes more than 400,000 residents of Chinese descent, were "inextricably tied." "There's a whole series (of opportunities) in natural resources, mineral products, it's all there," he said.
"Our job is to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place here to facilitate that trade to do so in an environmentally responsible way and to ensure that we are doing so quickly enough so that our opportunities are not supplanted by competitors because there are other jurisdictions out there who will try to take advantage of the demand that exists in China," he said.
De Jong cited the province's wood products as an example. In each of the past two years, exports of B.C. wood products to China have been around 1.1 billion Canadian dollars (about 1.08 billion U.S. dollars). The province has surpassed Russia to become China's largest supplier of lumber.
According to Wood Resources International, an industry consulting and research firm, five years ago, exports of B.C. lumber to China were less than one million dollars a year.
De Jong, whose ruling B.C. Liberal Party faces possible defeat in an upcoming provincial election in May, attributed the growth of the province's wood market to the "millions of dollars" spent in promoting such products in China, including the establishment of Dream Home Canada, a wood design demonstration site opened in Shanghai in 2009.
"We made that investment in partnership with business, British Columbia business, to profile British Columbia in this marketplace (China) that didn't really know about the products we had to offer. And, of course, in so doing we tied into that, referencing the cultural linkages, the historical linkages, and they exist arm in arm," he said.
Following the success of wood exports, de Jong cited liquefied natural gas, beef, agriculture and aerospace, among others, as the next areas of B.C. resources to be promoted in China.
In a vast province with abundant natural resources and a population of nearly 4.5 million, international investment was essential to realize the potential and to benefit the local economy, he added.
"Attracting international investment is a fundamental part of generating wealth and jobs in British Columbia, from China and anywhere in the world," he said.
"British Columbians own the resources. British Columbians will continue to decide how they are developed, apply the proper environmental protections, but attracting investment from elsewhere in the world to help develop and create jobs, to develop those jobs, I think that's essential," he said.
Strong wind, thunder hit Liuzhou City in S. China's Guangxi
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