Paul Martin commentary
If you or the company you work for sell products to buyers outside Saskatchewan here’s a new acronym you may want to note: ROW.
It stands for Rest Of the World.
Ever since Donald Trump began implementing his tariff regime, nations like Canada embarked on a program of diversifying their customer list to trade or increase trade with other countries. No where was that more important than Canada.
We now have a report on the impact of tariffs, not just from the US, and how Saskatchewan is doing in finding alternate markets.
Our sales to US buyers fell by eleven-percent last year. Our sales to China, which imposed tariffs on canola, dropped 35-percent and revenue from India, which tariffed pulse crops, fell 44-percent.
The US is still out biggest customer accounting for 54-percent of all our exports with sales nine times China, our number two buyer. But we are finding alternate customers.
Exports to Brazil rose roughly 50-percent last year moving into third spot on our customer list. Japan is now fourth, sourcing 33-percent more products from Saskatchewan while Mexico and Bangladesh both increased purchases by more than 40-percent.
