Canada has a lot to gain in Asia. From his attendance at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in October 2025 to his recent visit in Beijing, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s diplomatic trips to Asia show that Canada has both an interest and a need to enter the huge Asian market.
The Indo-Pacific region is now the world’s main economic engine, contributing up to 60 per cent of global growth. While Japan and South Korea recorded growth rates of between one per cent and two per cent for 2025, China is maintaining a growth rate of 4.2 per cent, India of 6.6 per cent and the ASEAN nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam) are growing at a rate of 4.3 per cent.
Asian countries may have different goals — some are working to establish economic momentum while others are striving for high-income status. But they all share the common goal of finding reliable, accessible and operational energy sources. On the first day of Carney’s trip to China Canada agreed to co-operate with China more on both clean and conventional sources of energy.
