The following is excerpted from 23 April 2013 article by the Financial Post.
One in five Canadian jobs is related to trade and exports, according to research done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and exports have played a key role in Canada’s recovery from the 2009 recession.
Encouraging Canadian business to become even more competitive is an essential component of keeping the economy strong in the years to come.
In order for this to happen, businesses and managers need to adjust their attitudes slightly with respect to their goals, ambitions and priorities. One such shift involves recognizing that trade and competitiveness involve more than just exports, says Ari van Assche, associate professor of international business at HEC Montreal and a researcher with the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
“Value chains are becoming more important, so we have to understand the role of imports in international competitiveness,” says Dr. van Assche. “We’re all in the habit of using export data to judge if a company, or a country, is competitive, and this is a measure that works well if whatever you export is entirely made in your company. But increasingly more products are made up of components from one area, that are assembled in another area, with additional value added in a third area, before sending it to the consumer.”
… Businesses are all too aware of the role that tariffs can play to prevent them from selling into new markets effectively, but equal attention should be paid to trade barriers around imports if Canada is to participate in global value chains, Dr. van Assche argues.
“In a global value chain world, your ability to obtain imports from other countries is vital,” he says…
This article is available in its entirety at: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/04/23/direct-export-isnt-canadas-only-ticket-to-global-commerce/.