B.C.’s Forest Minister is giving positive reviews from a trade junket so far in China and Japan to talk about wood exports.

Doug Donaldson is visiting those countries for the first time since Huawei executive Meng Wanzhao was detained in Vancouver last December.

His team was in China when that happened and left days later.

“We said we’d come back to China at that time. Over the past year, time has cooled tensions between the countries on that diplomatic dispute. And so when we had meetings in Shanghai with our customers and potential clients, the atmosphere was very good,” Donaldson says.

Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig do both remain in custody in China; both were apprehended not long after Wanzhao’s arrest in B.C.

Donaldson focused on exports while talking on the phone to reporters today.

“What we need to do is certainly reassure those customers that we have a sustainable, large capacity for long-term timber supply. To reemphasize – and we have – that we have a variety of species and a variety of applications that’s unlike other countries. And that the wood we do supply is of high quality.”

Donaldson says China is particularly interested in wood for furniture and for building in connection to tourism development, while he says Japan is building healthcare and senior facilities to support an aging seniors population.

“What we especially are looking for in China is moving up the value chain. Looking at increasing the price per unit that we get for wood, versus increasing volume.”

He says of particular benefit to the forest sector in B.C.’s Interior is demand for wood pellets in Japan.