Let me highlight a number of the initiatives and key milestones we've achieved over the last several years. Let me go back, say, five years when we were able to secure preferred destination from China. It took us a while to actually negotiate that, but what that now means is that Chinese tourists who are looking to come to Canada as tourists will now see Canada as being a preferred destination. Their ability to come to Canada as tourists has been dramatically increased, which is why we have seen significant increases in tourist flows into Canada from China.
The second milestone was when we brought into force the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement between Canada and China. What that agreement does, of course, is to set out a clear set of rules under which investments are made. If a Canadian company wants to invest in China and makes its investment, it now has a clear set of rules that will be applied to those investments. Not only that, but if there is a dispute between a Canadian company and a Chinese government at any level, and say there's alleged discrimination against the Canadian company, that dispute will not be heard within the domestic court system but will be raised to the international arbitration level, where our Canadian companies can have great confidence that the arbitrators will be fair and impartial and that it will be a fair process.
The next milestone I would highlight is the renminbi trading hub and related currency swap agreement we were able to negotiate with China. This will allow Canadian businesses to do business with China in the renminbi, which is their currency, and it reduces the costs of business transactions between our two countries, between companies of both of our countries. This is a significant competitive advantage.