OTTAWA, ONTARIO- The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, today released a new trade plan that reflects the changing global landscape, focuses on core Canadian strengths, aligns Canada's trade, development and foreign policy tools to advance commercial interests around the world, and sets concrete targets to grow the presence of Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. The comprehensive report, entitled the Global Markets Action Plan: The Blueprint for Creating Jobs and Opportunities for Canadians Through Trade, was announced during a keynote speech Minister Fast delivered to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa.
Five-Year Target to Increase SMEs Exporting to Emerging Markets: The Global Markets Action Plan will set out how the government will work with Canada's critical SME sector to grow the sector's footprint in emerging markets to meet the following targets:
- Grow Canada's SME export presence in emerging markets from 29 percent to 50 percent by 2018.
- This would grow Canada's SME footprint in emerging markets from 11,000 to 21,000 companies.
- This growth would create over 40,000 net new jobs.
