Kingston Economic Development Corp. held a one-day summit aimed at helping businesses learn how either to expand into China or increasing the business they already do there.
The day was filled with seminars to help business owners navigate the often complicated work involved with foreign trade and investment, said Carey Bidtnes, business development officer. Popular topics included ways to protect intellectual property, and how resources like the Canadian commissioner service can help your business overseas, he said.
The summit was opened by China’s General Consul, Wei He. China, he said, is becoming more open to business. “The 19th National Congress has made it known that China will adopt policies to promote high standard liberalization and facilitation of treaty and investment.”
Kingston-based Performance Plants has done business in China. The biotechnology company focuses on increasing crop yields.
In 2011, the company signed a licensing contract with China-based DBN Technology Group. Performance Plus president and chief science officer Yafan Huang says the Kingston company is now looking to increase its presence in China.
“We want to look for opportunities to work with more companies in China and allow them to understand our technology and the power behind them and to have better collaboration in different crops and systems,” Huang said.
About 75 per cent of Canada’s international trade is with the United States.
Even with the challenging renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, Huang said he’s confident things will end successfully, adding increasing trade with other countries will only help strengthen the Canadian economy.
“We will get through the struggles with NAFTA,” he said. “All three countries involved will come out ahead. That’s the whole point to trade. But at the same time, let’s look at other parts of the world.”
The Kingston region is already benefiting from trade with China.
Chinese company Feihe International Inc. has broken ground on a $225-million plant. Once operational, the baby formula manufacturer is expected to employ more than 200 people and will be looking for tens of millions of litres of goat milk annually.