Few small companies export goods: TD CEO
Canada’s businesses ‘not as engaged’ in global trade
TORONTO — Canada is losing its competitive edge in exports beyond commodities as fewer small companies look outside their home market, Toronto-Dominion Bank chief executive Ed Clark said Thursday.
“Our market share of U.S. non-commodity imports has dropped by about 30 per cent over the past 10 years,” Clark said at the bank’s annual investors’ meeting in Calgary. “Our business sector is not as engaged in exports as it is in many countries.”
Clark, 66, who will retire in November after a dozen years as CEO, said less than 10 per cent of Canada’s small and medium-sized companies are involved in exporting goods or services. About 50 companies represent half of the country’s exports, he said.
“We have to focus on ways to help firms, especially smaller ones, compete outside of Canada,” Clark said in prepared remarks.
Along with boosting exports, Canada must also remain focused on its energy industry, Clark said. The country’s oil producers have been paid lower prices for their heavy crude due to transportation bottlenecks, as pipeline proposals to the U.S. Gulf Coast and Canada’s Pacific Coast have been delayed amid opposition from environmental groups trying to block fossil-fuel development.
“We have a best-in-class oil-and-gas sector that knows how to compete around the world,” he said. The country must commit to an energytransportation strategy “that will ensure we are not vulnerable to one nation holding our
ED CLARK, TD BANK CEO
resources hostage.”
Clark led a U.S. consumer-lending expansion that began in 2004 when the firm agreed to buy a 51 per cent stake in Portland, Maine-based Banknorth Group. Toronto-Domin-
“We have to focus on ways to help firms ... compete outside of Canada.”
ion now has more branches in the U.S. than in Canada.
Toronto-Dominion’s firstquarter profit rose 14 per cent to a record $2.04 billion. The bank raised its dividend 9.3 per cent. Gains were led by a 44 per cent increase in its wholesale banking business, fuelled by higher trading revenue. Retail banking earnings in Canada and the U.S. were also higher, as contributions from acquisitions added to results.
“The big news is that the U.S. is back,” he said. The U.S. “is now viewed as the potential growth engine of the world,” he said.
Toronto-Dominion expects to meet a medium-term goal of seven per cent to 10 per cent growth in earnings per share this year, even as it continues to operate in a “tough, low-interest-rate, slow-growth environment,” he said.