Exporting: It’s Time to Swim

(Canadian Business – Megan Harman)

Canadian manufacturers treading water might have to start swimming across the Pacific Ocean to keep afloat. And their destination need not be just China. The United Arab Emirates and India are also big markets where Canadian products should have a greater presence, says Harinder Takhar, Ontario’s minister of small business and entrepreneurship. “There are tremendous opportunities in both these countries,” he said at a Toronto roundtable event in January, where small and medium-sized manufacturers pitched ways the government can help the industry.

Between the strong Canadian dollar, a skilled-labour shortage and a U.S. economic downturn hampering the one market that exporters depend on most, the manufacturing outlook for the foreseeable future is the dimmest in years. No wonder companies might feel they have enough to handle without tackling new markets. “We’re a manufacturer. We’re not in the business of finding global markets,” says Jason Galamaga, co-owner of Modern Age Plastics Inc., a Toronto producer of signs and displays. Modern Age Plastics has fewer than 100 workers and lacks the resources to expand abroad, a problem facing most Ontario manufacturers since 99.5% of them have fewer than 500 employees. Read the entire article.