OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada hopes that Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in South Korea next week, a senior Canadian government official told reporters on Thursday.
Carney, who stresses the need to restart a broad engagement with Beijing after years of poor ties, is due to be in Seoul for an APEC summit. He said last week he expected to meet senior Chinese leaders in the coming month.
“We’re hoping there will be a meeting and will plan accordingly … we would like to see a meeting at APEC if possible,” a senior government official told a briefing when asked about a possible Xi meeting.
China announced preliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola imports in August, a year after Canada said it would slap a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.
Senior Canadian and Chinese officials discussed the canola and electric vehicles disputes last Friday, Ottawa said, but gave no indication of any immediate breakthrough.
(Reporting by Maria Cheng and David LjunggrenEditing by Promit Mukherjee/Keith Weir)
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