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EuroWire – May 2012
21
Transatlantic cable
The ‘historic opportunity’ of a pact
with Japan would open up Canada to
the world’s third-largest economy
When, in Tokyo on 25
th
March, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of
Canada and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan announced
that the two countries had entered negotiations for a free-trade
agreement, the two leaders pledged that their partnership
would bring a bonanza of economic opportunity. “The potential
for increased trade between us that will create jobs and growth
and long-term prosperity is really enormous,” Mr Harper said.
Mr Noda, while no less bullish about the outlook for economic
cooperation, framed the Canadian-Japanese partnership
in somewhat di erent terms. He said: “We rea rmed the
importance to tackle outstanding global issues, particularly the
issues surrounding North Korea and others in the Asia-Paci c
region.”
To Murray Brewster of Canadian Press, the national news
agency headquartered in Toronto, the distinction in emphasis
suggested a need for the Canadian side to look sharp. He wrote:
“Trade experts say Canada will have to up its game because the
Japanese are tough, skilled negotiators – probably the most
formidable the Harper government has faced” since it launched
an ambitious series of bilateral negotiations. (“Canada, Japan
Agree to Enter Negotiations for Free-Trade Deal,” 25
th
March).
Mr Harper stressed the signi cance to the Canadian economy as
a whole of the two-thirds increase in exports to Japan that could
eventuate from a trade pact. If an accord is reached it would
be Japan’s rst with a country from the Group of Eight major
economies, moreover one that makes an attractive partner.
Canada is in a strong scal position and has probably the world’s
soundest banking system, and Japan has expressed an interest
in increasing its Canadian investments.
But the Japanese prime minister also made it plain at a joint
media conference in Tokyo that he sees Japan’s cooperation
with Canada in a context of regional relations with the
new regime in Pyongyang. Mr Noda said that the partners
would pursue enhanced defence and security cooperation,
including the establishment of a small supply base in
Japan that the Canadian military could use in emergencies.
Ron MacIntosh, a research associate at China Institute and
former trade negotiator who served in Japan, South Korea,
and Taiwan, told Mr Brewster that Canadians must remind
themselves that free trade in Mr Noda’s part of the world is
about more than lowering tari s and o setting subsidies.
The Harper government, Mr MacIntosh advised Canadian
Press, could expect to endure a learning curve “in Asian
realities.”
Automotive
‘Cars are, to put it simply,
a great untapped opportunity for the
telecommunications industry’
The speaker – Bill Ford – was not misquoted. In February, in
Barcelona, Spain, the executive chairman of the car company
founded by his great-grandfather Henry Ford addressed the