{"id":17575,"date":"2011-02-24T11:27:08","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T10:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/conjoncture-le-vrai-dynamisme-canadien-20110224.html"},"modified":"2016-02-10T09:56:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T08:56:14","slug":"the-real-canadian-dynamism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/the-real-canadian-dynamism","title":{"rendered":"Economic climate: Canada's real dynamism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto, a city of superlatives. The number one city in North America for the cost of 'doing business', it is the tenth city in the world to appear on the list of the most 'global' megacities, the second with the most skyscrapers under construction and the fifth in terms of economic impact. 40 % of the major Canadian groups are based here. The list goes on and on, and it would be too long to list it all.<\/p>\n

Especially as the capital of Ontario, which orchestrates a province with 39 % of the population for almost 13 million inhabitants and 40 % of Canadian GDP, can also boast the role of economic capital. Toronto alone accounts for 21 % of national GDP and 35 % of the money spent in the country. Ontario, second only to Alberta in GDP per capita, is one of the country's economic engines, although its dependence on the US market and the manufacturing sector has led to some setbacks. With 50 % of Canada's industrial output and 2.5 million cars manufactured each year, three quarters of which are redistributed to the US, Ontario has had to face new challenges. This is all the more true given that global manufacturers, particularly Japanese and American, who set up in the region because the Canadian dollar was initially relatively weak, enabling them to minimise production costs, are now faced with parity with the US dollar. But Ontario, with its twelve assembly plants, has managed to maintain its status as the leading car-producing region in North America, thanks in part to the support of the provincial authorities and the federal government.<\/p>\n

Toronto owes its strength to its political and financial stability. A great asset, given that the major Canadian financial institutions now choose to set up their head offices here. Including, ironically, the Bank of Montreal. With Toronto having absorbed all the other Canadian financial centres in 2008, the city ranks third in North America for the number of jobs in banking services. \"The city has become the world's leading commodities exchange, even though London is in close competition\".<\/em>says Stefan Mazareanu, Ontario Trade Counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in France. He continues: \"Canada has significant natural, mining and oil resources. And the expertise of its mining analysts is recognised worldwide\".<\/em><\/p>\n

Breaking free from dependence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Canada has suffered much less from the crisis than the United States, thanks in particular to the absence of subprime mortgages and the fact that the government did not have to bail out the banks, the 75 % of exports destined for the United States have weakened the economy. This heavy dependence on the health of its powerful neighbour is perhaps also the reason why Ontario has turned to cutting-edge sectors. High technology now accounts for almost 50 % of jobs in the province. Toronto has gradually become one of the largest centres of activity in Canada and North America for communications, culture, media and the film industry. RIM, the iconic company behind the BlackBerry, has expanded to Waterloo in Toronto's outer suburbs, bringing with it other nuggets such as Up Next. Ontario has also specialised in biotechnology. Encouraged by the provincial authorities, most of these sectors benefit from tax credits, especially for research and development.<\/p>\n

Attracted by Ontario's burgeoning ICT and life sciences sectors, French companies are well represented. \"France is number five for investment in Canada and Ontario\".<\/em>adds Stefan Mazareanu. One of the province's strengths is the very high level of training of its workforce, 65% of whom have post-secondary education. \"This is the highest level of the G8\".<\/em>says the Business Affairs Advisor, adding that several thousand engineers work in Ontario for the Alcatel Lucent group. Ontario's other advantage is its advantageous tax system, which is much lower than in the United States. While the corporate tax rate is 33 % in Texas and 40 % in Michigan, it is only 27 % in Canada. What's more, business costs are estimated to be 10% lower than in the United States. Another major advantage is access to the entire North American market and the possibility of targeting 450 million consumers. The city of Toronto, situated in the middle of a line between the East Coast (New York, Boston) and Chicago, is a veritable corridor to the American market. In all, 160 million consumers can be reached in a single day by truck. This strong dependence on the American market is both a strength and a weakness, and has led Canada to find alternatives and to open up more and more to Europe and China. Since 2009, negotiations led by the Minister for International Trade, Peter Van Loan, should culminate in an economic and trade agreement with the European Union in 2011. This will make Canada the only developed country to have agreements with both the European Union and the United States at the same time.<\/p>\n

It's easy to imagine that this will boost trade with French companies, even though there are already 200 businesses in Ontario, employing nearly 30,000 people.<\/p>\n

\"ImageEconomic capital of Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n

This figure is set to rise further as a result of the growing attractiveness of Ontario's capital. \"In the 1980s, Toronto became the economic capital of Canada and a leading cultural city in North America, often cited after New York.<\/em>says Patrick Imbert, Director of the Ubifrance Canada Economic Mission, based in Toronto. Even if the industrial crisis put the city to sleep in the 90s, it is now experiencing a real boom, with the renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario by Frank Gehry - a native of Toronto - the arrival of major hotels and a new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. \"Toronto is in a state of upheaval; it's a working city offering a very high quality of life and a multitude of assets\".<\/em>says Patrick Imbert. It's true that, in the latest rankings published by the British magazine The Economist, Toronto came 4th after Vancouver, Vienna and Melbourne for quality of life. And that's precisely where French companies are most interested. \"Canada is a market with a growing demand for sophisticated products, whether in the field of organic food, cosmetics or even fashion, perfumes and luxury goods, technology, the environment or health\", continues Patrick Imbert, adding that Canadians' interest in top-of-the-range French products is booming. The range of opportunities for French SMEs is therefore widening, despite the old belief that it would be easier to set up in Montreal for linguistic reasons.<\/p>\n

As further proof, if proof were needed, of Toronto's rapid growth, a new economic development structure was set up in 2009 at the city's initiative. With the same objective as its big sister \"Invest Ontario<\/em>, \"Invest Toronto<\/em> has set itself the task of attracting foreign investors by making it easier for them to locate here. \"If the country offers some of the lowest corporate taxes in the G8, if it has the lowest business risk factor, if the business environment is very welcoming and transparent, if Toronto is one of the safest cities to work in, it also offers an extremely rich cultural life, great ethnic diversity and a very good balance between business and human interest\".<\/em>explains Renato Discenza, President of Invest Toronto. Of the 300,000 immigrants arriving in Canada every year, almost 150,000 settle in Ontario and 100,000 in Toronto, and there's a reason for that. \"This city, like Canada, is a 'Land in expend', a land in constant evolution\".<\/em>says Renato Discenza. In fact, in the language of the Amerindians who named it, Toronto means \"place where we meet\". A global city that seems to be doing everything it can to live up to its name.<\/p>\n