China, the world's biggest exporting nation, wants to double its trade with Canada to $60 billion by 2015, President Hu Jintao said on Thursday.
Hu made his remarks during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Conservative government is trying hard to boost ties with Beijing.
"I have agreed with Prime Minister Harper that we should take active measures to make our
countries' two-way trade volume reach a target of $60 billion by 2015," said Hu, who noted that bilateral trade last year totaled $29 billion.
Canada, which sends 75 percent of all exports to the United States, is eager to diversify into other markets to offset weak demand from its main customer.
As China's energy consumption booms it is looking to Canada as a stable supplier of resources, and over the last year Chinese companies have begun increasing their investment in Canada's oil sands.
Canadian firms doing big business in China include plane and train maker Bombardier Inc <BBDb.TO> and engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc <SNC.TO>.
In their public comments, neither Harper nor Hu mentioned irritants in the trade relationship. China continues to restrict Canadian canola with blackleg disease to a few ports away from its rapeseed growing areas.
Ottawa recently persuaded China to extend those limited provisions but would like Beijing to lift all restrictions. Harper raised this issue on a visit to China in late 2009.
China is one of the few countries that continues to ban all Canadian beef since the discovery of mad cow disease in 2003. (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch and David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)
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