BEIJING: Canada has high hopes for a trade agreement with China but won’t rush into negotiations that could affect their economies for generations to come, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.

On the second day of a visit to Beijing, Trudeau told reporters that Canada was “constantly engaged” on trade issues with China as part of exploratory talks on a trade pact launched two years ago that have tackled issues such as agricultural exports.

Despite hopes that formal talks on an agreement would be announced during Trudeau’s visit, it appeared that wasn’t going to happen.

“For the past two years, we’ve been working on deepening our trade ties, our opportunities for small businesses, for Canadians to benefit from better access to the Chinese market while standing up for our interests and jobs back home,” Trudeau said.

“This is something that is an ongoing process that we take very seriously and of course we are going to continue to talk about opportunities to benefit Canadians every moment that we have” in both China and back in Canada, he said.

Rather than announcing trade talks, Trudeau instead touted an agreement with China on the importance of dealing with climate change and upholding the 2015 Paris agreement, despite President Donald Trump’s aim to withdraw the United States from the accord to cap greenhouse gases.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2017