Ottawa is getting ready for a visit from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and the city’s mayor said that continued efforts to strengthen ties between Canada and China are important.

Li will visit Canada from Wednesday to Saturday, meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa. The talks between the two leaders will focus on trade and investment, environmental co-operation, legal and judicial collaboration, cultural exchanges and people-to-people ties, according to the prime minister’s office. Li will also travel to Montreal to meet with political and business leaders and members of the Chinese-Canadian community.

Ottawa has a sister-city relationship with Beijing, which was first established in 1999 and extended in 2013 when Watson signed the Exchange and Cooperation Agreement with Beijing to further strengthen ties in economic development, trade, investment, education and tourism. Canada’s fourth-largest city has a population of about 884,000 with approximately16,000 Chinese.

"We look forward to Beijing and China participating in our 2017 celebration as Canada celebrates its 150th birthday next year in Ottawa,” he said. "We’ve invited the mayor of Beijing to come to Ottawa in 2017, we hope to be able to finalize that arrangement because we think it’s important to strengthen the ties between our two cities.”

Like other Canadian cities, Ottawa has been attracting Chinese investors, with the mayor leading a trade delegation to China at the end of last year, and signing five major agreements with Beijing mayor Wang Anshun.

The city has been promoting itself as a technology and innovation hub. Chinese investors have shown interest in wireless, communications, and medical device, according to Invest Ottawa, the city’s economic development program.

To date, the outreach efforts have resulted in 120 local high-tech companies forming bilateral trade, investment and partnership activities with Chinese companies.

"I think the relations are very positive. The prime minister’s visit to China was a successful visit — a lot of deals signed that will benefit both countries — and here in Ottawa, we have a very strong relationship with the Beijing municipality,” Watson said.

He also noted that Canada’s relationship with China is long-running: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of the current prime minister, established diplomatic ties with China in 1970, and both countries exchanged ambassadors by 1971.

"As you know our country through Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau initiated diplomatic relations even before the Americans and a number of other countries,” said Watson. "So we have ties, whether it’s Dr Norman Bethune, or our sister city agreement, or the Trudeau relationship, that’s a positive thing.”

Bethune was a Canadian physician who served as a doctor for the Chinese guerilla army.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com