Report: To stay competitive, Canada must boost export levels
The Canadian Business Journal
CBJ Sep 22 - According to a report by the Institute of Competitiveness & Prosperity, Canada must further increase its trade levels with the European Union and emerging economies like China in order to be a global leader of innovation and prosperity.
“We are all familiar with the traditional arguments for international trade, in that it opens markets to our businesses and enables them to achieve scale and specialization. It offers our consumers more variety and lower prices,” said Roger Martin, Dean of the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management and Chairman of the Institute of Competitiveness & Prosperity. “We conclude that trade also stimulates our innovation (driven by a combination of support and pressure, while international trade contributes to both), economic success and prosperity.”
Consumers demanding innovative goods and services are a threat to content businesses that do not drive for innovative, according to the report. According to Martin, there is a growing fear that increased import and export levels with nations like China could lead to losing Canada’s manufacturing base, based on low cost of imports. Notably, a high value of the Canadian dollar also negatively impacts these trade levels.
“To ensure our future prosperity in Canada, we need to engage with these emerging economies and step up our own innovation capabilities,” the report states. “Expanded trade with European Union countries will expose us even more to savvy trade partners and, through pressure and support, will help boost our capabilities.”
The Institute of Competitiveness & Prosperity recommends that Canadian governments and businesses need to improve their efforts to encourage new trade relations among multiple sectors.
“Our businesses have an opportunity to draw on our recent immigrants’ experience and familiarity with some of our emerging trade partners to develop export strategies,” said the report.
