The Profit magazine and Business without Borders did a short piece on ‘Canada’s Hottest Markets’ of growth in trade between 2005 and 2009, this December. Guess who came on top?
A market that had grown 164% in exports during this period.
That huge consuming machine and one of the wealthiest nations of the world- Saudi Arabia.
This was an interesting perspective that I thought I would spend some time on and look at some current figures and the categories of maximum potential.
As of Nov 2010, the year-to-date total exports [Domestic and re-exports] from Canada to Saudi Arabia was at $ 825.5 million, a growth of 51.8 % between the year-to-date figure in 2006 and 2010. A more than healthy growth. The key product categories that contributed significant numbers were:
| Category | CAN$ Millions |
| Vehicles, aircraft, vessels and associated transport equipment. | 152 |
| Machinery and mechanical appliances; electrical equipment; parts thereof; sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers, and parts and accessories of such articles. | 111 |
| Pulp of wood or of other fibrous cellulosic material; recovered (waste and scrap) paper or paperboard. | 97 |
| Vegetable products | 151 |
| Prepared foodstuffs; beverages, spirits and vinegar; tobacco and manufactures tobacco substitutes. | 40 |
| Mineral products | 59 |
The great news here is that the largest category of transportation equipment & the next category of machinery together should be music to the ears of the manufacturing sector in Canada.With infrastructure investments in Power& Water, Rail, billion dollar Oil & Gas projects and complete new cities to be built, Saudi Arabia can be a very lucrative market for our manufacturing sector.
The other element to note is the quantum of vegetable products & prepared food and beverage numbers- together amounting to close to $ 200 Million provides another clue of what Saudi Arabia needs. Packaged food and value-added processed food products should rake it in.
And it is not just the trade that we should look at. As the BWOB/Profit piece notes, the Kingdom is in the process of building “3000 schools, 100 hospitals, 6,400 km of roads and six whole cities. Substantive opportunities also exist in education, housing, food products and health-care equipment and services”. More importantly this just does not mean exports alone.
Businesses can open a whole new market for their products if they are quick to spot the opportunity and set up joint ventures in Saudi Arabia. A case in point is the project that we recently completed for a Canadian manufacturer for entry into the Middle East- their Canadian sales built over the last 30 years can perhaps be matched by the sales volume they can expect to generate from the GCC countries in just the next three years.
Now who would like to say ‘no’ to that?
To take a look at the BWOB/Profit article, click http://www.bwob.ca/resources/metrics/canada%e2%80%99s-hottest-overseas-markets/
And look out for analysis and posts on the two other top performers in the top 3 markets for Canada- UAE and India, soon.
Rmagine 