LeMine Investment Group, an Ontario real estate, investment
and trading company, has signed a seven-year deal to export canola oil to China
and has agreed to promote it with Guizhou Fengguan Group.
The deal was announced while Prime Minister Stephen
Harper was on a trade mission this week in China. Others with him included
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and International Trade Minister Ed Fast.
“We’re really supportive of anything that’s going to
improve trade because China is a huge and growing market for us,” said Patti
Miller, president of the Canola Council of Canada.
LeMine must arrange to purchase from an existing
Canadian canola crushing plant, Miller said, but added in comments to the
Manitoba Cooperator that she doesn’t know all the details of the deal.
Companies with Canadian canola-crushing operations
include Bunge, Archer Daniels Midland, Richardson International, Cargill,
Viterra, TRT-ETGO and Louis Dreyfus.