Leaving Québec, expanding abroad | Preferred markets

(London) If the United States has long since become the natural outlet for our exporting companies and today monopolizes more than 70% of our total exports, it is high time to seek to take advantage of the trade agreements that have opened up doors to other markets, but which we still only cross very timidly.

Two weeks ago, at the Farnborough International Air Show, I met the managers of two SMEs in the aviation sector who have resolutely undertaken to continue their progress outside the northern market alone -American.

The Shockform company, from Boisbriand, founded in 2006, has developed repair tools in the mechanical surface treatment sector to repair aircraft parts. Each year, the company improves its order book by diversifying its clientele.

“We developed by doing business with distributors, mainly in the United States, but we decided to have our own offices abroad, one in the United States and another in France, to cover the European market. explains Brigitte Labelle, CEO and co-founder of Shockform.

Four years ago, Mr.^me Labelle hired Charlie Clouet as head of international development, as part of the talent attraction program sponsored by Investissement Québec.

“For four years, we have recorded annual growth of 30% in our international sales, which have tripled in France to now represent 35% of our income. We are now ready to open an office there to be present on the spot”, explains Charlie Clouet.

Shawinigan-based Delastek, which designs and manufactures cockpits for Airbus A220 aircraft and Bombardier Global 7000 and 8000 business jets, opened a plant in Querétaro, Mexico, in 2017 to better meet growing demand.

“We are working with Investissement Québec to break into new markets in Mexico, but also in Europe. We could set foot there,” explains Andy Lessard, business development manager for the Mauricie company.

Delastek obtained the support of Investissement Québec to establish itself in Mexico and is now taking advantage of the network of contacts of specialists from the state-owned company to push further the breakthrough it wishes to achieve in Europe.

Marie-Ève ​​Jean, Vice-President, Exports, at Investissement Québec International, confirms that Québec exporting companies have every interest in diversifying their markets and not limiting themselves to the United States alone.

“There is the Canadian market that we neglect too much. It is nevertheless a market of 80 billion in exports that we do not exploit enough and it is in our interest to do so.

“We also have a free trade agreement with Mexico, from which we don’t take enough advantage, and we also have the free trade agreement with Europe, where France and Germany are markets that have a strong potential”, explains Marie-Ève ​​Jean.

Delegations connected to the economy

The economic shift that the Legault government made Quebec delegations abroad take was well understood. All the delegates general with whom I spoke confirmed to me that economic issues now occupy a significant part of their activities.

The Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, Nadine Girault, explains that economic development has always been part of the work of Quebec delegations abroad, but that since the new strategy was put in place in 2019, we devotes itself to it in a more systematic way.

“We kept our diplomatic foundations which are solid, but we added the economic stage. We want to increase our companies’ exports and we want to make business people aware of the potential of foreign markets. We now measure the progress made by calculating each year the increase in firm export sales of the companies we support,” explains Nadine Girault.

In Mexico, General Delegate Stéphanie Allard-Gomez wants Quebec companies to benefit more from the Canada-United States-Mexico Free Trade Agreement (CUSMA), particularly in the automotive sector where European and Asian manufacturers established there must meet the standard of 75% North American content.

“We have a director of economic services and five commercial attachés who seek to build bridges between Quebec companies and the Mexican market, where there is a lot of potential,” observes Ms.^me Allard-Gomez.

Martine Hébert, Québec’s Delegate General in New York, herself an economist by training, is immersed in her universe since, out of the delegation’s team of 30 employees, a dozen are assigned to economic and commercial affairs.

“We also supported Technostrobe in setting up a factory in Albany to assemble beacons for offshore wind turbines,” explains Martine Hébert.

new blood

Arriving as the new General Delegate of Quebec in Munich in the midst of a pandemic, Elisa Valentin was particularly relieved to have organized her first official reception at the Delegation last May to highlight the establishment of the Quebec company Optel in the Bavarian capital.

“We make economic, political and cultural relations, but the economy is taking more and more place in our activities. Quebec has been represented in Germany for 50 years, and we have had a cooperation agreement with Bavaria for 30 years,” said the delegate general.

Finally, newly arrived last March as Québec’s General Delegate in London, Line Rivard, who worked for 25 years as a capital market specialist at BMO, had the perfect profile to give more economic impetus to the delegation.

It should be noted that the team of commercial attachés in London was assisted by colleagues specialized in aeronautics from the delegations in Rome, Brussels, Paris and Munich for the duration of the Farnborough air show.

For the president of the Federation of Quebec Chambers of Commerce (FCCQ), Charles Milliard, the economic support work done by Quebec delegations abroad deserves to be more publicized.

“SMBs in the regions need to develop the reflex of finding out about the programs that exist to support them in developing new markets. We must take advantage of the international agreements that we have signed and which are underused. The French are more active in Quebec than we are in France,” laments the president of the FCCQ.

To correct these shortcomings, the federation signed a three-year partnership agreement with the Ministère des Relations internationales to organize an annual tour of the heads of Quebec posts abroad in the regions where they discuss with entrepreneurs to explain their services and present their market.

Round tables were organized in Quebec, Laval, Terrebonne, Trois-Rivières, Victoriaville and Sherbrooke. Let’s hope that these meetings will have stimulated in our entrepreneurs in the region the desire to export and even distilled the urgency to do so. Quebec is small, but the world is vast.