Creating new jobs and opportunities for Canadians through trade is the priority as Canada focuses its efforts on the specific markets and sectors that hold the greatest potential

November 27, 2013 - The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, today released a new trade plan that reflects the changing global landscape, focuses on core Canadian strengths, aligns Canada's trade, development and foreign policy tools to advance commercial interests around the world, and sets concrete targets to grow the presence of Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. The comprehensive report, entitled the Global Markets Action Plan: The Blueprint for Creating Jobs and Opportunities for Canadians Through Trade, was announced during a keynote speech Minister Fast delivered to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa.

"Under the Global Markets Action Plan, our government will concentrate its efforts on markets that hold the greatest promise for Canadian business-and focus on core commercial objectives within those markets, said Minister Fast. "We will do this through vigorous and continual trade promotion, supported by ambitious trade policy. In short, this new plan will play to our strengths and ensure that all of Canada's diplomatic assets are harnessed to support the pursuit of commercial success by Canadian companies and investors. We fully understand that when our businesses succeed abroad, all Canadians benefit from the jobs and opportunities that are created at home.

The plan will target three distinct types of markets:

• emerging markets with broad Canadian interests;
• emerging markets with specific opportunities for Canadian businesses; and
• established markets with broad Canadian interests.

Key elements of the Global Markets Action Plan include:

• a new trade promotion plan that entrenches the concept of "economic diplomacy by focusing government resources and services in order to maximize the success of Canada's commercial interests in key foreign markets;
• ensuring that Canada's trade policy tools are prioritized toward initiatives that will yield the maximum economic benefits to Canadian workers and businesses;
• sustained efforts to leverage Canada's position as the only G-8 nation to have preferential access to the world's two largest markets-the European Union and the United States-comprising more than 800 million customers, and providing Canada with free trade access to over half of the entire global marketplace; and
• renewed stakeholder linkages to ensure that government priorities are in sync with the needs of businesses, and that the plan adapts to changes in the global economy.

The Global Markets Action Plan will also set out how the government will work with Canada's critical SME sector to grow the sector's footprint in emerging markets to meet the following targets:

• Grow Canada's SME export presence in emerging markets from 29 percent to 50 percent by 2018.
• This would grow Canada's SME footprint in emerging markets from 11,000 to 21,000 companies.
• This growth would create over 40,000 net new jobs.

Source: Export Development Canada Economics.

"In a fiercely competitive global economy, Canada cannot be complacent, said Minister Fast. "We must be more aggressive and effective than the intense competition we face as we advance Canada's commercial interests in key global markets. This new plan represents a sea change in the way Canada's diplomatic assets are deployed around the world, and in so doing, we are ensuring that the commercial success of Canadian firms and investors is entrenched as one of our core foreign policy objectives.