亚洲天堂 Lake and District Chamber of Commerce manager, Shelley Wall, will leave for China later this month for an 11 day tour of tourist and commercial sites.

The tour, organized by Citslinc International Inc. and the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Canada is intended to increase local awareness of the opportunities that China holds for people and businesses in small communities like 亚洲天堂 Lake.

Chamber of Commerce executive will have their expenses subsidized by the hosting parties.  Wall鈥檚 expenses will be around $300 for the trip.

鈥淭hey want to make us familiar with tourism, business and municipal leaders in China,鈥� Wall said. 鈥淭hey want us to encourage tourism, but they鈥檙e also trying to build relationships with businesses.鈥�

鈥淭hey want us to feel familiar enough to organize tours for Northern B.C. business people to set up contacts with Chinese suppliers,鈥� she said.

According to World Bank data, the Chinese economy has seen rapid growth over the past 10 years. Since 1990, the Chinese Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by more than twenty times, from $357 billion in 1990, to $7.3 trillion dollars in 2011. The Canadian GDP, by comparison, was $1.7 trillion in 2011.

According to Canadian Business Magazine, this rapid growth has seen China become the world鈥檚 largest trader of goods, larger even than the United States.

This growth is what Wall hopes to experience and bring back to 亚洲天堂 Lake.

鈥淚鈥檓 hoping to come back with a better understanding of China and to be able to promote business opportunities with China,鈥� she said.

It鈥檚 easy to think that trade with China happens at a large-scale level, but Wall said that a lot of Chinese businesses want to create partnerships on a small scale.

鈥淲e sometimes think that we鈥檙e too small of a town or too small of a business, but people aren鈥檛 aware of the opportunities for partnership,鈥� she said.

Their itinerary will include meetings with municipal governments, and tours of various economic development zones.