Chinese Ambassador to Canada Lan Lijun Friday called for "vision" for the betterment of China-Canada relations.

"Better China-Canada relations require more engagement and dialogue and perhaps more importantly -- vision," Lan said in a luncheon speech to a group of 200 Canadian political and business leaders in Toronto.

"Vision that will help us jump out of the bottlenecks, so that ten or twenty years from now, we will be able to look back on those efforts and rest assured that we have done the right thing for the Chinese and Canadian people," He said.

China's share of Canadian trade is "relatively small and narrowly based" though it has tripled in the past decade, he said.

Apart from sales of wood, minerals, and machine parts, he said,the two countries "need to expand and focus on developing markets for retail trade and services sector," including science and technology, hydropower, engineering, IT, and human resources.

The event was co-hosted by the Canada-China Business Council and the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association.