Invest Alberta CEO Rick Christiaanse joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss his part in a recent delegation to China, and the impact of the developing trade relationship on Alberta. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: Weighing the success of the trade mission, how far do you see it going to charting a new economic path forward beyond reliance on the U.S. market? Rick Christiaanse: We want China to buy products from Alberta. Canola is obviously very important to us, but so are other agricultural products. It was good to get back and chart a path and work with our friends in China to make sure we re-establish those relationships and continue to get investment from the Chinese. Most people in Alberta probably know the Chinese invest largely in our economy and in oil and gas. Their investment is well over $60 billion, which represents almost 50 per cent of all the money China invests in Canada. So they are certainly an important trade investment partner for us. MH: Alberta has an existing relationship on this with China, but how big of a shift is this from a federal government perspective? RC: It is significant. My team has been on the ground in China for years. We have people located in both Hong Kong and in Beijing. The Alberta government has people on the street as well. We’ve been working very hard at maintaining and building relationships. But quite frankly, for the last number of years, we have been lone rangers in that market. Alberta has been present, most other provinces have not, and the federal government had its issues. It’s been a challenging environment to operate in, and the feds now coming on side is incredibly helpful. MH: What role did you play in this delegation? RC: We sat in on some of the meetings, and we also made sure a number of investors we’re currently working with who are planning to come to Alberta, were in front of the prime minister. One of them will be in Alberta in February. So normally you schedule 10 to 15 minute meetings with them. It’s more of a meet and greet. Most of our clients ended up spending 45 minutes or even longer with the prime minister to chat through what they’re thinking about and how they’re planning to move forward. MH: Where does Alberta land on the radar of Chinese leadership? How much interest do they have in what’s happening here? RC: They are the largest buyer of oil out of the new pipeline that opened last year. They want to buy more oil because the reality is they were buying oil from Venezuela. So number one, they see oil as really important for the growth of their economy, and they see Alberta as one of the opportunities to move forward with that. Secondly, petrochemicals. They have always wanted to do more business with Alberta, produce more things here for their market back there, so we’ve been working with them on that as well. Thirdly, agriculture. Canola is one product, but there are many other products they want to buy from Canada. With all the uncertainty in the world, especially the uncertainty being created by our friends down south, dealing with a reliable Alberta, which has predictable high quality products, is something that they want to continue to build on and continue to work on. MH: On that uncertainty front, what degree of concern was there with the Chinese over momentum building around the separatist movement in Alberta? RC: I get asked that a lot, and it certainly is of interest in Alberta. There was a little bit of conversation about it in Europe when I was there last summer. There has been no conversation in Asia around the separation concerns at all. When we do explain it to people, and walk them through what’s happening, how the referendum is going to work, what percentage of Albertans are thinking about separation. People are pretty comfortable with what we’re explaining to them and how we’re working it through. MH: There has so far been no apparent interest from any private company willing to step up to invest in a new pipeline. If China is seriously interested in more Alberta oil, what is the likelihood Chinese investment could be on the table? RC: That’s a great project the premier and her team are working very hard on. I’m not going to get in the middle of those discussions. But I am going to say the Chinese stand ready to participate in whatever format we would like them to. So it’s really up to us to decide the level of engagement we want to move forward with, which I’m sure is something the provincial and the federal government are thinking about on a daily basis. MH: Outside of the energy sector, what other areas of the Alberta economy stand to benefit from these talks? RC: Agriculture absolutely does, but I think we have to be smart. [Saskatchewan] Premier Moe and I were chatting a little bit about this, and at the end of the day it’s good to be back in China, and it’s good for our canola farmers to be able to sell their products into that market. But let’s make sure we also diversify and continue to develop other markets, so we don’t run the risk of getting into this situation again where we’re reliant on one particular country. Pork and beef are high on the list as well, and there’s some movement on both of those fronts as we head into the next few months. We’ll have to see how that plays out in terms of what actually gets put in, because it’s a very complex file, but we see further opportunities for that. Pulses are very popular in in India, and that’s been our primary market for that. But there’s also significant demand for that product in the in the in the Chinese marketplace, and we would love to sell more of that product there. So there’s work being done around that. MH: You mentioned a possible Chinese delegation coming here in February. What are you anticipating now where Chinese investment in Alberta is concerned? RC: That’s one of the things I’m really excited about. The team’s been working so hard, but there’s been no reason to really bring Chinese investors here. Individual investors have a schedule we’ve created for them that starts Feb.14. We hope to make some initial announcements that are primarily around investment and private equity funds that are Chinese in nature, either from Hong Kong or the mainland, that want to start investing in Alberta. We’re going to hopefully welcome them. Then in rapid succession we have some petrochemical companies coming into town, we have some agricultural companies coming and we also have some people that are really intrigued by the All-Seasons Resort Act the government passed late last year. It allows for additional development in provincial parks, hotels, destination resorts. The Chinese are really good at developing those kind of resorts all over the world, so there’s a high level of interest in that. Those four sections are probably where we’re going to continue to focus on, and we have been focused on them for a number of years.
