There's plenty of cash up for grabs for western Canadian exporters, but they have to hurry.
A report, called Beyond The Usual Suspects, from the Canada West Foundation says there could be at least $1.7 billion available on tariff reduced exports to Japan.
One of the authors of the report, Sharon Sun says they've listed a number of products Canada and Japan could trade.
"Our work contributes to the Canadian Market and Product Diversification by identifying product export opportunities in Japan, because of tariff reduction specifically," she says. We didn't look at other opportunities that do not face tariff reduction such as canola seed, even though canola seed is one Canada's largest exports to Japan."
Sun says this report identifies what is already highly traded with Japan, but also other opportunities, the less traded and less obvious products with high potential.
"For Alberta for example, we have the pork, the beef, frozen potatoes and even less obvious stuff like natural honey,"
The U.S. and Japan signed a partial deal in October and it's already in effect and allows the U.S. to win back some of the things it lost when it opted out of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
"Under the tariff reduction for Canada we've identified that a lot of these products are agricultural gains," Sun says. "Such the fresh or chilled pork, frozen boneless beef, these are some of Canada's largest gains and these are some of the largest competitions that we face against the U.S. with Japan."
One of the key recommendations of the report is that this data needs to be used right away by the government and export agencies to be able to better assist businesses in entering the Japanese market.
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