Nouvelles
Bilingual links translate to deals - trade mission bringing in results
A dozen local companies have cashed in on a series of trade missions between Manitoba and three other bilingual markets -- Quebec, France and Belgium -- according to the local trade agency that helped organize the trips.Michel Simard, trade co-ordinator for Agence Nationale et Internationale du Manitoba (ANIM), said the 12 deals that have been signed in the two and a half years since ANIM began organizing the trade missions include 11 between companies from Manitoba and Quebec and one between a Manitoba company and one in France.
On Tuesday, representatives from three Quebec seafood-processing firms were in Winnipeg hoping to add to that number. They were meeting representatives from six Manitoba companies, including restaurant operators and food distributors, who might be interested in either buying their products or distributing them here.
And later this month, eight other Manitoba companies, including a trucking firm, a plastics manufacturer and a clothing designer, will be sending representatives to Quebec to meet potential trade partners there, said Sarah Zaharia, a commercial trade agent with ANIM who was overseeing Tuesday's trade discussions.
Zaharia said it's only been about four months since the last Manitoba trade mission to Quebec. That one involved representatives from 12 local interactive media firms, including television and movie production companies, video-game designers and an audio production company.
"We're doing them (trade missions) more and more often," Zaharia said. In 2008, ANIM hosted only one trade mission to Quebec. Last year there were five, as well as one that saw a Quebec delegation come to Manitoba.
Winnipeg-based daCapo Productions Inc. was one of the participants in last November's mission to Quebec. The company's manager of operations said the firm is negotiating with a Quebec firm he hooked up with on the trip. The Quebec company is interested in hiring daCapo to produce audio for a new video game it is developing.
"The first (project) we do together will probably be fairly small, and we like it that way," Clinton Skibitzky said, adding it gives both sides a chance to see what it would be like to work together on a project.
"It certainly looks like something will happen," Skibitzky said, adding the other firm is a major producer of video games. "So if it works out, great! There's no question there could be lots of other work in the future (for daCapo)."
Mariner Neptune Fish & Seafood, a local firm that sells fish and seafood products to local restaurants, supermarkets and hospitals, was one of the six Manitoba companies that met Tuesday's Quebec delegation.
Sales manager Evan Page said it's the first time Mariner Neptune has participated in this kind of trade mission. He said was impressed.
Page said Mariner Neptune is interested in adding more fish and seafood to its product offering, and some of the Quebec products look promising.
"I'd be very surprised if something doesn't develop out of it. We're definitely going to be pursuing it beyond today."
He said the nice thing is that he was able to meet representatives of three Quebec processors without leaving the city. "For fact finding, this is way more effective than going to their place. To run off to Quebec -- I just wouldn't do it."
Skibitzky said he feels the same way. "It (the trade mission to Quebec) facilitated a contact that definitely would not have happened otherwise," he said.
Simard said there are another 75 "active files" on which negotiations are ongoing between Manitoba companies and firms from the three other bilingual markets. He said there's no way of telling how many of those will end in deals being signed .
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 3, 2010 B5
