Two direct charter flights from China coming to Halifax next year

Premier Stephen McNeil announced Thursday that Halifax will be welcoming two direct flights from the Chinese city of Guangzhou in 2020.

The city of almost 15 million is the capital of Guangdong province in southern China.

“This is an opportunity for us to have our first direct link into Atlantic Canada. We want to prove that, quite frankly, this is a marketplace,” said McNeil.

Not only would China Southern Airlines be bringing in tourists to Nova Scotia on those two flights, but eventually the goal is to have bi-weekly direct flights coming and going between the two cities, allowing tourists and trade goods to flow between them. 

The announcement comes after years of relationship-building between our province and Guangdong province, with the hopes of increasing tourism directly to Nova Scotia and solidifying economic ties between the two regions.

According to the McNeil, 80 per cent of seafood exports in Nova Scotia go to Guangdong, and he hopes the direct flights will further trade goals.

“Cargo will be part of this flight going back. I can’t tell you how many times our lobster has been described as Boston lobster. This will be an opportunity to continue to do, and work on the work that we’ve been doing exporting our seafood out of here,” McNeil told reporters today.

The Government of Canada has issued an advisory asking Canadians going to China to exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.

The advisory is due in part to the continued imprisonment of two Canadians in China, both of whom were arrested in 2018, just ten days after RCMP officers arrested Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer for Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

At the press conference, McNeil remained adamant the country is safe to visit, and represents a profitable market for Nova Scotia.

“We don’t see it as an issue at all,” McNeil said. “I have been in and out of China, and I’ve said this many times, if my children wanted to go I’d be more than happy to send them to China.”

Provincial opposition leader Tim Houston is a little more hesitant about the degree to which McNeil is investing time in establishing relations with China.

“We have a beautiful province, we have a province that people would want to come visit. All over the world, people want to come here and we should never lose focus of that,” said Houston. “Opening up a new market is a good thing, but it’s a big world, and let’s make sure that we’re selling this province to people all over the world.”

In 2018 Nova Scotia welcomed about 5,000 Chinese visitors and the province hopes to increase that to 50,000 annually by 2024.

The province is still working out the details of these two direct flights, but they are expected to arrive in Halifax in the fall of 2020.