RI-Canada trade promoted

RI-Canada trade promoted

TORONTO (AFP): Indonesia leads Southeast Asia in trade with Canada and is the region's biggest recipient of Canadian investment, International Trade Minister Roy MacLaren said Monday.

The minister, speaking to a group of businessmen with interests in Indonesia, said that country was already Canada's largest market for merchandise exports in the region and was a growing market for Canadian exports of services.

"We expect that two-way merchandise trade will exceed C$1.1 billion (US$814 million) this year," said MacLaren.

"In addition, our exports in services to Indonesia are an increasingly important factor in international trade, which will exceed C$100 million (US$74 million) this year.

MacLaren said greater efforts were being made to attract small and medium-sized enterprises in the two countries to get involved in bilateral trade and investment.

He said there were "already a number of transactions in the pipeline" following the provision in May of a number of private sector lines of credit by Canada's Export Development Corporation and Indonesia's Bank Umum Nasional.