Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited Chinese people to visit his country at a promotion event of the 2018 China-Canada Tourism Year in Beijing on Monday, Chinanews.com reported.

Trudeau and Li Jinzao, Chairman of China National Tourism Administration, unveiled the tourism event. Sina President Cao Guowei and representatives of the tourism industry in both countries were also present at the ceremony.

Trudeau said that Canadians, famous for their politeness, will go out of their way to welcome Chinese tourists. In 2016, the two countries jointly declared 2018 as the China-Canada Tourism Year, and agreed to expand cooperation on promoting two-way tourist exchange.

Last year, over 600,000 visits were made from China to Canada, and almost an equal number of Canadians visited China. The increasing number of visits between the two countries signals deep bilateral friendship, Trudeau said.

Official statistics have counted China as one of Canada’s fastest-growing tourism markets and third largest source of tourism. Canadian tourism officials expressed the hope of receiving double the number of Chinese tourists by 2021.

Trudeau started to use Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, in 2013. He now has more than 140,000 followers on the platform.