Recent numbers show Asian awareness on the rise in Canada. That bodes well for the country’s worldly outlook. However, a key question for Canadian business remains: is awareness of Asia’s trade opportunities and challenges also on the rise among the country’s entrepreneurs?
A recently released survey commissioned by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APFC) noted that 49% of respondents “see the growing importance of China as more of an opportunity than a threat.” That compares with 41% in the same camp in a 2014 survey. The survey also found that 46% support a free trade agreement with China, up from 36% in 2014. Small and medium-sized business (SME) leadership could benefit from more of that enlightenment.
Last year, an APFC survey found that while most SMEs surveyed exported to Asia, 48% didn’t use any Export Development Canada or other available resources to help them expand their Asian enterprise.
The size of the Asian market, especially China’s, means that even without leveraging those resources or sharpening company focus on the 21st century Asian opportunity, pretty much any company can get a piece of the action in the short term. Statistics tell that tale.
Merchandise trade between Canada and China increased 10% between 2014 and 2015 alone, and Chinese imports as a share of containerized cargo moving through the Port of Vancouver has increased to 60% from 13.2% over the past 20 years. But business can multiply those numbers exponentially by committing more resources to the pursuit of market diversity.
Being next to the world’s largest economy is a blessing and a curse for Canadian entrepreneurs. Geography provides ready market access to that economy, but it also cultivates an unhealthy reliance on it that discounts diversification opportunities elsewhere.
As the discontent over NAFTA and other free trade deals being stirred up in the interminable U.S. presidential election campaign illustrates, dependence on American economic benevolence is bad for local business prospects, innovation and initiative in the long term.
