Saskatchewan’s Exports to China Booming Despite Economic Slowdown
The competition for China’s imports is growing fiercer, as the country’s economy slows and demand – though still among the world’s strongest for many commodities – drops off accordingly. Nine of Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial leaders will be in China this week for the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, known informally as the summer Davos, once again promoting Canada’s exports ranging from natural resources to Anne of Green Gables.
Fortunately for Saskatchewan’s farmers, at the end of the day, everybody still needs to eat.
The province’s exports to China jumped 103 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2012, driven by potash sales and food exports. Turns out Saskatchewan’s yellow peas, used in transparent vermicelli noodles, have caught on in China; the province is thought to provide 85 per cent of China’s total pea imports and 20 per cent of its potash imports, according their own data.
Chinese demand for potash was widely expected to fall this year on falling food prices. But Canpotex is now in the second of a three-year deal to sell more than three million tonnes of the fertilizer to China’s Sinofert, a state-connected firm listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
“We are marketing food and energy, and whether or not there is a recession, the world needs those,” Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall told reporters after addressing a polite luncheon crowd at Beijing’s St. Regis Hotel, better known as President Barack Obama’s home when last in town.
“Even when they’re in recession, they grow at 7 or 8 per cent. That’s quite a recession, by our definition.”
– Globe and Mail