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Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a slew of agreements Wednesday covering energy, natural resources, education, science and technology, and agriculture.

Meeting in Beijing, the two leaders also capped 18 years of negotiations on an investment protection deal for Chinese and Canadian investors.

Harper said negotiations on a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement (FIPA) between the two countries have concluded.

The prime minister is on a trade mission with a planeload of Canadian business people aimed at finding markets for the country’s goods and services.

“The agreements being signed today, in such a wide range of areas, are further testimony that we are taking relations to the next level and further strengthening our strategic partnership,” Harper said in a release.

Deal ratification needed

The foreign investment protection deal still needs to be legally reviewed and ratified by the Canadian and Chinese governments before it can come into force. In Canada, that will include debate in the House of Commons. But the deal is essentially done, the CBC’s Susan Lunn reported from Beijing.

The agreement gives foreign investors equal footing with domestic businesses in either country. Business groups had been urging Harper to wrap up talks with China in order to spur greater investment between the two countries.

Canada and China had been negotiating the agreement since 1994, and by January 2010, a dozen rounds of talks had failed to produce a deal.

By the end of 2010, Canadian investment in China increased by 38 per cent over 2009 levels. That same year, Chinese investment in Canada totalled $14 billion, an increase of nine per cent.

The FIPA has been desperately needed, given Canadian investors’ experience with corruption and fraud in China, the CBC’s Terry Milewski reported from Beijing.

Officials now expect it will be reviewed and ratified by both sides within a year, he said.

With files from The Canadian Press