Canadian banks and financial institutions can provide China with top-notch financial products and services, which have been proven to be highly reliable during the ongoing financial crisis, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday.
The finance minister spoke to CTV's Canada AM from Beijing, where he has been leading a business delegation that arrived in China on the weekend.
"We can certainly offer excellence in financial regulation, we've shown that during the economic crisis in the past two years," Flaherty said during a telephone interview Tuesday. "We can also offer sound, well-capitalized financial institutions that are reliable -- and that can't be said by many countries in the Western world, given what has happened in the past two years."
The business delegation is putting the capabilities of these banks on display in China.
The hope is that the trip can help drum up opportunities for Canadian businesses and strengthen ties with Beijing.
"The major point we're trying to make is that Canada is in relatively good shape, a good place to invest," Flaherty said.
"It's growing our bilateral relationship, our friendship relationship and our business relationship," he added.
Flaherty is accompanied by Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, as well as other government officials and financial executives, who together form one of the largest business delegations to head to China in recent memory.
The Conservative government has shown signs that it intends to build bridges with China, as it has sent several cabinet ministers to the country in recent months -- International Trade Minister Stockwell Day visited in April and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon visited the following month -- and the prime minister is scheduled to travel there later this year.
Former international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew says the fact that the Harper government is making inroads to China is a sign of the times.
"The American consumer, because of the credit situation, will not become the engine of world growth that he has been for decades," Pettigrew said Tuesday morning during an interview on CTV's Canada AM. "I think the American consumer will continue to be a very important client for us, but real growth will be in Asia."
Even Flaherty acknowledged that times are changing.
"Seventy-five per cent of our exports go to the United States now, it used to be 80 per cent," Flaherty said Tuesday. "We don't want to export less to the Americans, but the American economy is relatively weak."
As a result, Canada will set its sights on increasing the amount of business it can do with Asia.
Pettigrew, who now works as an executive adviser for the consulting firm Deloitte, said Canada has been building a relationship with China for decades, though he believes the Conservative government has struggled with the file in recent years.
"Hopefully, we will correct the mistakes and the bad start we've been having with China, because in China, you cannot do business, or economic business and activities, if you don't engage the government," he said.
With files from The Canadian Press
