Asia Gets More Canadian Trade Officials at Europe’s Expense

(Embassy – Lee Berthiaume)

While applauding the government’s decision to bolster its trade commissioner ranks in Asia over the past two years, business associations are lamenting the fact the increase has come at the expense of other regions.

At the same time, given the state of the world economy, there are calls for the government to increase funding to trade promotion items like trade commissioners, which are considered extremely useful to exporting businesses. [...]

According to Embassy's figures, the government has increased the number of trade officials posted abroad by 12 over the past two years, bringing the total to 944.

Asia was quite clearly the biggest beneficiary, having seen 23 new trade officials on the continent, reflecting the government's focus on China and India, in particular. Latin America, another government priority, and the Middle East each saw increases of five.

On the other side, Europe and North America each lost 10 trade officials, while Africa stayed fairly steady, losing only one. Read more here.