REGINA — As trade tensions and global markets remain a major focus for Saskatchewan, the province’s international trade representatives say demand for Saskatchewan food, fuel, fertilizer and critical minerals continues to grow around the world. Managing directors from the province’s various trade offices gathered at the Legislature this week.
Minister of Trade and Export Development Warren Kaeding welcomed managing directors from offices located in Germany, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and India.
“We have our managing directors come here at least once a year, just to see and hear about what's happening in the province,” said Kaeding. “What's changed, if anything, what our priorities are of government, and then certainly to engage with each other and share some of the opportunities that they're seeing and they're hearing about, and being able to share that with the other offices, because … information and knowledge is power, and it's certainly beneficial for everyone to have that background as to what they're seeing and hearing in … their trade offices.”
Kaeding said of the managing directors that the “work they've done, the energy, the enthusiasm they bring to promoting this province is second to none, la and I think we've seen that with the level of investment that we've had in the province, with the interest we've had in all our key sectors here, and that is in a very, very large part to the people that we have in our trade offices that are found throughout the world.”
Some of the managing directors are located in places that have been of particular importance as hot spots for the province over the past year.
Scott Matthies, from the India office, was raised in British Columbia before coming to Saskatchewan for school. He had a long history in India, starting as a student in the 1990s and then working for a number of not-for-profits into the mid-2000s before coming to Saskatchewan to work for the SHA.
“And this opportunity came up. It wasn't necessarily something that was on my radar, but it came up and was an opportunity for me to come back to India and support Saskatchewan.”
He said Saskatchewan has “such a strong value proposition” in terms of what it offers India on trade.
“We're hard workers, but we're typically very quiet about that. Other provinces are a bit flashy on the international stage. Saskatchewan is humble. But really, we have the most valuable offer, really, when it comes to our agri products, our critical minerals products, and what we have to offer the world in terms of our food, our fuel and our fertilizer.”
Matthies said India is interesting because it has 1.4 billion people and “massive food security challenges and massive energy security challenges.”
“Saskatchewan has an incredible reputation in India when it comes to our agri products. Our entire pulse industry has been built around servicing India. India is a major pulse export destination, and our products are seen as the best on the planet.”
He also noted India is a major consumer of potash products and a growing economy with energy demands the country needs met.
“We see that in the $2.6 billion uranium deal that was just signed in March, and also represented in the Canada-India Pulse Protein Centre of Excellence,” he said.
Matthies sees “nothing but opportunity.”
“Especially now that the Canada-India relationship is back on track, for the most part, and we have tremendous opportunities coming online with the uranium projects that are coming online, Saskatchewan opportunities for investment there, rare earth elements opportunities, where we're leading the planet in rare earth elements.”
Another area that has made major trade news for Saskatchewan is China and Southeast Asia. Ha Nguyen from Vietnam is in charge of the Southeast Asia office and said China is “one of the most important markets for Saskatchewan.”
“Every year, we export about $4 or $5 billion from fertilizer to wheat, canola seeds, canola meal.”
With China having between 1.4 and 1.5 billion people, Nguyen said “there's increased demand from the middle class, from Chinese consumers for our healthy, good quality, safe products from Saskatchewan.”
“We have food, fuel and fertilizer, and more than that to offer to China and Chinese consumers. And they have continued to need our products. And most recently, with all the efforts from our provincial government, working with the federal government to remove Chinese tariffs on our key products to China, that I would see more and more opportunities for us to increase our exports of our products to this important market.”
Horacio Cuevas from the Mexico office was born in Mexico but calls himself an “adopted Saskatchewanian,” with his wife from Saskatchewan and family in the province.
“It's a fantastic role. It was my dream job,” said Cuevas.
It’s also a role that has become increasingly important due to the trade issues both countries have had lately with the U.S.
“I think Canada and Mexico were just focused on the U.S. That hasn't worked lately,” said Cuevas. “So it was a great opportunity to connect. It was a great opportunity to increase trade. Mexico is the largest market for canary seed. Most of it comes from Saskatchewan. Ours is the second largest market. Canola is the fifth largest market.”
Cuevas also has responsibility for the Latin American market mainly focused on Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil, with Brazil being their largest market for products like fertilizer.
“It's very important to bring Saskatchewan forefront. Because, for example, people do not know, but Saskatchewan is the largest contributor to the Canadian exports in South America.”
He said Mexico is a major buyer of Saskatchewan canola, canola seed and canola oil and also receives quite a lot of non-durum wheat. But he said the most important importers for non-durum wheat are Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, each of which receives eight per cent of all Canadian non-durum wheat.
A big part of his job, he said, is about relationships.
“It's about building trust. It's about being approachable. It's about building relations. It's about facilitating that human interaction. At the end of the day, business, at least in many of our regions, is about relationships. It's hard to do business over an email. You really need to connect with the person. And we are those connectors.”
“We are the people that build the trust first on behalf of Saskatchewan and then facilitate an introduction to make the work for Saskatchewan companies easier as much as we can.”
