Tapping India for trade
India may hold immense trade potential for British Columbia, but this province and Canada need to overcome their low profiles.
India may hold untapped trade potential for British Columbia, but Canada needs to overcome its low profile if B. C. businesses want to take part in the subcontinent’s economic growth, a business forum was told Tuesday.
“The truth is — and I don’t mean to be rude about this — but Canada is not seen as a dominant player,” panelist Adam Roberts, South Asia bureau chief for The Economist, told the forum of Indian and Canadian business leaders attending the two- day event. “You don’t see Canada as one of the big ones coming through India. China is an immense trading partner. America obviously, and the European Union. Canada is going to have to fight harder to be noticed.”
Despite the low trade numbers — B. C. exports to India were only $ 321 million in 2012 — trade is growing rapidly off its 2009 bottom and is up 60 per cent over 2011. Almost all exports are in commodities such as coal, copper, pulp and lumber.
Further, trade figures for Canada and India are underreported because much of it goes through companies in the United Kingdom or the United States, said panelist Arvind Vijh, director of India services for Deloitte Canada.
“The lines can get blurred on the numbers,” he said.
Premier Christy Clark, who spoke at the B. C. government hosted forum, said in an interview that the province intends to fashion its trade approach to India along the lines of its successful lumber strategy in China, where demand grew from $ 69 million a year in 2003 to over $ 1 billion by 2011.
“I think we can do the same thing in India. That billiondollar number may be in clean tech, it may be in agricultural technology or it may be in the service sector,” she said.
Clark said one of the obstacles B. C. faces in building trade with India is the lack of a direct air link.
“Business travel connections are crucially important for establishing the economic links between our jurisdictions.”
Clark said she has met with airlines to try to establish Vancouver as a hub for Indian airlines but that “ultimately these kinds of decisions about air travel are made based on customer demand.”
Investors used the forum and their time in Vancouver to explore potential business links. Praveen Kadle, CEO of Tata Capital, a subsidiary of Indian business giant Tata Sons, said in an interview that he is interested in B. C.’ s potential in the clean- energy sector. He has met with fuel cell manufacturer Ballard Power and natural- gas engine leader Westport.
“If India is to grow at six to seven per cent every year for the next 25 to 30 years, then we need huge amounts of natural resource capital, energy capital, and financial capital,” Kadle said. “All these three can be provided in sufficient measure by B. C. That’s where I would say that Indian companies, including Tata, can look at coming here and buying these assets or enlisting in technology or getting the technology imported from here and resources imported from here.”
Expect to see it happen over the next two to five years, he said.
“We are certainly interested in alternative energy, clean technology. I will not say we are not looking at natural resources. We are also looking at natural resources, but alternative energy or nonconventional energy is something that we are certainly looking at. We are very keen to develop that and explore further possibilities of working together with the companies here.”
British Columbia’s natural gas can be competitive in India because of lower global shipping costs, said Indian journalist and political commentator Mobashar Jawed Akbar.
“Shipping costs have come down so dramatically that it has a tremendous impact on the cost of doing business. Energy from Canada can be as cheap as energy from Bangladesh.”