There are many facets to Canada’s relationship with China as the recent announcement that Canada is planning a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing attests.

Among these many facets is our trade with China, so today’s Owl takes a look at Canada’s exports to, and imports from, the Middle Kingdom.

In 2012, China overtook the United Kingdom as Canada’s second largest customer after the United States.

As of 2020, annual merchandise exports to China were worth $25.2 billion or 4.8% of Canadian exports. The U.S. dwarfs all other destinations of Canada’s exports at almost three-quarters of the total. The U.K. was in third spot at 3.8%.

We sell a lot of different things to China including a large amount of agricultural products, wood pulp, iron and copper.

When it comes to what we buy from other countries, China overtook Japan in 2002 as our second largest supplier after the United States.

Annual merchandise imports from China in 2020 were worth $76.5 billion or 14.1% of the total. As with exports, the U.S. is our main source of foreign goods, but its share of our import pie is smaller at 48.8%. Mexico is Canada’s third largest supplier at 5.5% of all imports into the country in 2020.

The list of things we buy from China is long with electronics, textile products, medical supplies and toys among the largest categories.

Watch for a new episode of The Future of Podcast next week on the topic of China’s evolving role in global trade featuring ATB’s Chief Economist Todd Hirsch and Carlo Dade of the Canada West Foundation. Subscribe to ATB Financial's The Future Of to be notified first of new episodes.

Answer to the previous trivia question: Bees have six legs.

Today’s trivia question: When did China’s population pass the 1 billion mark?