Market access, export infrastructure among top issues for exporters: STEP

Exporters who send their products to markets outside Saskatchewan have been in the spotlight as the threat of U.S. tariffs looms large.

Chris Dekker, president and CEO of Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP) joined the Evan Bray Show on Tuesday to discuss the issues exporters are facing and what they’re saying about them.

Listen to the interview with Dekker, or read the transcript below:

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: What do you make what’s happening right now? Is this something that you deal with regularly, or does it just happen to be our closest neighbour this time?

DEKKER: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. We poll our members and certainly listen to the exporting members of STEP, and they tell us there are two overarching issues that are consistent throughout the decades: market access – and that’s protectionism and tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers – but also infrastructure, getting our goods to market.

This is critically important to act to the economy of Saskatchewan in that we’re one of the most export-dependent provinces and one of most export-dependent countries in the world. We have to sell the vast array of products and services we produce and mine and extract, and develop in this province to markets around the world in order to grow and to succeed.

That infrastructure piece is important. Is that something we do a good job in this country collaborating on, because Saskatchewan alone can’t tackle an infrastructure problem?

DEKKER: Around the world, we like to sell what we call the Canadian brand – it stands for reliable, safe, secure, competitive prices and the highest quality products in the world. What we’re suffering lately on is reliable delivery. As we continue to experience issues with our export infrastructure, our members are telling us that they have deep concerns with both the operations and capacity of our export infrastructure. They struggle through things like rail strike after port strike, and protests, and rail capacity issues, port capacity issues and delayed and cancelled shipping. And all of that has a direct impact to not only the bottom line but also to our reputation abroad as a reliable supplier.

We note that some work is being done. The Port of Vancouver is one of our biggest ports, particularly to the Asian markets and to some of the South American markets, and it’s trying to increase capacity through things like the Roberts Bank terminal two project, but it’s now in its 14th year of environmental and project review. Fourteen years.

Meanwhile, our competitors Peru and China, through a commercial partnership, have announced the opening of phase one of a shipping terminal at Port Chancay Peru as part of China’s Silk Road initiative. And it will be able to accommodate larger cargo ships, which can head directly to Asia, cutting their journey time by two weeks. And it was announced and built to phase one in five years.

So with things like increased capacity of potash because of the BHP mines coming on stream next year, the increase in capacity from the canola crush, there’s significant issues that need to be addressed.

And, clearly, room for government, in many cases, to get out of the way or at least reduce some of the red tape so that you can be more efficient in the completion of these projects.

DEKKER: It’s really up to our federal government in terms of rail and port capacity, which we think is the biggest issue, and we certainly need to have an overarching federal strategy to address it.

Do you feel like the members of STEP are each doing their own bit of work, whether it’s reaching out to clients they work with or businesses that they partner with in the United States, to try and exert whatever influence they can to prevent these tariffs from happening?

DEKKER: That’s a great question, Evan, because really, there’s two kinds of pillars to our efforts against these potential tariffs – one is prevention, the other one is mitigation.

The prevention strategy is the comprehensive lobbying effort that is being undertaken by the federal government and by our provincial government. They’re doing great work in lobbying with our sub-national and national efforts, but there’s a significant role for business and industry in this effort, as our members have been doing business in the U.S. for many decades.

So to assist exporters and all provincial businesses, we’ve developed and posted on our website an initiative called “Trading Places,” which is a web-based program containing facts and figures on Saskatchewan’s trading relationship with the U.S. and the 50 U.S. states, some quotable quotes, links to key reports and analysis and webinars. It’s all designed to assist our exporters in developing key messages and then encourage them to contact their clients, customers, and supply chains in the U.S. to ensure that they understand our critical relationship and the mutual benefits of free trade.

You’ve been in this role now Chris for the better part of a decade. How have you seen industry business change when it comes to trade and export? Even away from this current tariff threat, how have you seen things change in the last decade?

DEKKER: Well, things have changed and they’ve not changed throughout those 10 years. Our members are expressing issues and concerns with respect to either export infrastructure, or access to markets, and it shifts in terms of the priorities in the market.

For instance, we have recent geopolitical issues with our markets in China, the ongoing regional conflicts that flare up. Of course, we have the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have the issues that we’re seeing in Israel and the impacts that it has on our ability to get into those markets. Those will change in terms of the direction and the market but the issue still remains two-fold. One is market access and preferred market access, and that means tariff and non-tariff barriers, but also our export infrastructure. Those are the two overarching issues that we’ve seen, you know, flip in terms of its priority over the last 10 years.