With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1498118
READ THIS Gabriola Island resident and renowned writer Katherine Palmer Gordon is back at it with This Place Is Who We Are: Stories of Indigenous Leadership, Resilience, and Connection to Homelands, a collection of 10 accounts of how Indigenous peoples in central and northern coastal B.C. are restoring what has been lost through environmental depredation, and healing what has been devastated by colonization. Gordon details how Rediscovery camps are healing and empowering youth, and why one Nation is building a healing centre and ecolodge. Harbour Publishing, 256 pages, paperback, 39.95 £ aggressive China. The five goals of the strategy include promot- ing peace, expanding trade, boosting investment and sup- ply-chain resilience, fostering people-to-people connections and building a sustainable and green future. Taiwan ticks all of those boxes, and B.C. in particular ac- counts for more than 43 percent of Canada's exports to Taiwan. Liu, a career diplomat who served a total of 12 years in the U.S. before taking on her cur- rent role, says the Taiwanese community is more visible and likely more influential in Metro Vancouver compared to Houston or L.A. As a result, she observes, "it is easy for people to meet up, do business and hold events." Reflecting on the changing geopolitical landscape, Paul Ev- ans, an international relations expert at the University of Brit- ish Columbia, says he foresees an increase in those people-to- people ties, including interac- tions "involving institutions such as universities, more par- liamentary links and support for Taiwan's possible inclusion in some trade agreements." Some of Taiwan's biggest companies are already active in Canada, like Eva Air and China Airlines, which together operate an average of 14 weekly flights between Taipei and Van- couver, according to Liu. YangMing Marine and Ev- ergreen Marine, both global transport brands with a major presence at the Port of Vancou- ver, are key players in shipping industrial, commodity and con- sumer goods between the Cana- dian and Asian ports. "Air and sea traffic between Canada and Taiwan are now back to their pre-pandemic levels," Liu says. Some of Taiwan's leading financial institutions, including Mega International Commercial Bank, CTBC Bank and First Com- mercial Bank, have branches in Metro Vancouver to serve the growing number of retail and corporate customers with expo- sure to both economies. Natural resources account for the bulk of B.C. exports to Taiwan, including nickel, cop- per, iron and aluminum, as well as seafood and agricultural products such as soybeans. From Taiwan, B.C. imports ICT products, electronics, auto- mobile parts, bicycles, aircraft components, athletic wear and sports accessories. But as innovators in both markets set their sights on growth in the emerging areas of clean energy, food tech, elec- tronics and electric vehicles, those trends are looking ripe for disruption. Last October, Taiwan's Sin- bon Electronics signed a strate- gic partnership agreement with Vancouver's Damon Motors to contribute to the electrical as- sembly in Damon's line of elec- tric motorcycles. A month later, Taiwanese tech behemoth Foxconn and Canadian nation- al research organization Mitacs agreed to jointly develop elec- tric vehicle software and hu- man-machine interfaces, with plans for the establishment of a software research centre in Canada. And Taiwan's Molicel, which manufactures recharge- able lithium-ion cells and bat- teries, recently announced plans to expand its production line in Maple Ridge to meet the growing demand for its prod- ucts in North America. But the new generation of tech-linked businesses isn't just flowing from Taiwan to Can- ada. "Vancouver's Lululemon has a dedicated team on the ground in Taiwan that is cur- rently working with Taiwanese textile companies to develop cutting-edge fabrics," says Liu. The clothing giant is collab- orating with U.S.-based Lanza- Tech and Taiwan's Far Eastern New Century to create the world's first fabric made from captured carbon emissions. Liu also points to Van- couver's JustKitchen, which recently signed an agreement with President Chain Store Corporation (which operates 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan) to enhance food delivery systems and ready-to-eat meal options. The long shadow of Xi Jinping's plan for "reclaim- ing" Taiwan still looms. But Canada—and especially B.C.—is continuing to grow its relation- ship with Taiwan. £ Spoke Show To salute the efforts of the 1,000 gravel- happy cyclists who are expected to arrive in the Cowichan Valley for Canada's first-ever (gruelling, 210-kilometre) Belgian Waffle Ride this May 26 to 28, we've lined up some wheely interesting numbers about biking in B.C. by Melissa Edwards There are 152 cycling equipment retailers in B.C. THE PROVINCE IS HOME TO 1/4 OF ALL SPECIALTY CYCLING STORES IN CANADA VALUE OF CANADIAN BICYCLE EXPORTS 2018 $35,861,000 2022 $37,315,000 4% OF CANADIAN BICYCLE IMPORTS 2018 $310,377,000 2022 $556,643,000 79% Vancouver's Mobi bike share has 2,000 regular bikes and 500 electric-assist bikes spread across 250 stations 11,872,122 km ridden over the first 6 years of the service A study of tourism in the Fraser Valley Regional District found that visitors spent a combined 64,018 recreation days mountain biking and 14,524 days road and gravel biking in the area in 2019 DIRECT TOURIST SPENDING: Mountain bikers $7,552,504 Road and gravel bikers $4,084,966 GO FIGURE: ISTOCK 12 BCBUSINESS.CA MAY/JUNE 2023 ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E