By Bruce Cochrane
The chair of Manitoba Pork says Canadian participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership will secure continued access to the Japanese market for Manitoba pork and potentially future access to China.
Canada is one of 12 nations involved in negotiations aimed at securing a Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement.
Manitoba Pork chair George Matheson notes, in 2014, Manitoba exported over $677,000,000 worth of pork to 7 of those 12 TPP nations.
George Matheson-Manitoba Pork:
It's our hope that Manitoba pork producers would, through this multilateral trade agreement, that it would broaden our potential markets.
Definitely the key opportunity to participating in this agreement would be to provide Manitoba producers and enhance and secure our already very important Japanese market.
We do not want to be on the outside looking in in regard to this key trade pact.
China is not part of this agreement right now but they would be very welcome but they would have to meet the other country's high standards of food safety.
China would be a real key opportunity considering the massive market they are and it would be wonderful if they could be part of it and it would increase Manitoba's exports there.
Matheson stresses the Trans-Pacific Partnership is so big that it would cover nearly 40 percent of the world economy and account for approximately a third of all global agricultural trade.
He points out Canada is the world's third largest exporter of pork behind the U.S. and the European Union and we don't want to lose out on a trade deal that would lower import tariffs for them, so Canada must be part of this partnership.
Source: Farmscape