China has lifted the ban on Canadian canola imports, a Canadian official said Thursday, calling the announcement “very good news” for growers caught up in the three-year diplomatic row between the two countries.
The arrest at the end of 2018 in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, the financial director of Huawei and daughter of the founder of the Chinese telecom juggernaut, marked the start of a major diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Ottawa, with the parallel detention in China of two Canadians. After nearly three years of proceedings, Meng Wanzhou was finally released at the end of September 2021 and returned to China.
“We learned yesterday (Wednesday) from the Chinese authorities that our Canadian canola can be exported to China,” said Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau.
“Two major companies have been suspended for a period of time so this is very good news for our producers,” she told reporters in Ottawa.
In March 2019, Chinese authorities decided to revoke the license of Canada’s largest agricultural producer, Richardson, and the company Viterra Inc. due to pests detected in exports.
At the time, China was one of the main markets for Canadian rapeseed, with the Asian giant absorbing almost 40% of Canadian exports.
Canada had exported more than five billion Canadian dollars of rapeseed (3.3 billion euros) in 2018, according to figures from Canadian farmers.
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