Paul Martin's Business Update - October 23rd

With the new Canada-European Free Trade agreement or CETA now signed and ready for ratification, economists are looking at just how important that particular trading relationship is. For Saskatchewan, it’s not our biggest partner but it is a sizeable one.

In broad terms for every dollar of goods and services we import from that region, we sell them two dollars worth. In other words, this is a very favorable partnership for us.

In 2012 Saskatchewan spent roughly half a billion dollars on European imports. By contrast we sold them $1.2 billion worth of goods and services. Our principal exports to nations such as France, Britain, Germany and Italy included uranium and wheat while we imported chemicals and equipment from the Germans.

In the grand scheme of things this volume accounts for less than five per cent of Saskatchewan’s total exports and about five per cent of our imports. So not that big but the idea behind trade agreements is to strengthen trade and for an exporting province like ours structures that streamline the process is a step in the right direction.

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