Canada risks falling behind with tepid approach to African trade: South Africa envoy

Canada risks falling behind with tepid approach to African trade: South Africa envoy

OTTAWA — Ottawa's tepid approach to expanding trade in Africa risks seeing Canada fall behind its peers in building commerce on the continent, warns South Africa's envoy.

High Commissioner Rieaz Shaik said Ottawa still views African countries as recipients of aid and security assistance, despite an Africa strategy pushing for Canada to treat the continent as a series of dynamic markets set for high growth.

"My criticism of Canada would be that it hasn't seriously made the transition," he told The Canadian Press.

"With all second-movers in any market, you run the risk of not getting into the market — or the market becomes saturated."

Advocates for more engagement in Africa say China, the United Arab Emirates and some other western countries have formed closer ties on the continent that could pay off for decades.

The Senate foreign affairs committee echoed that view in a report last December, arguing Canada should staff up the foreign service to expand African trade in sectors beyond mining.

Shaik said he is working to get Canada to sign a strategic partnership agreement with South Africa to commit to working more deeply in five sectors — agribusiness, infrastructure, mining, energy and advanced technologies. It would be anchored in a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, a pact that puts legally binding rules in place to protect, promote and expand foreign investment between two countries.

"The objective is to reset the relationship between Canada and South Africa," Shaik said.

Canada last signed an investment pact with South Africa in 1997, and the two countries have been working for several years to upgrade that deal.

Shaik says the talks hinge on investor-dispute tribunals: Canada wants an international resolution mechanism but South Africa's constitution requires domestic courts to resolve issues.

"It is more an issue of sequencing rather than issue of substance that divides us," Shaik said.

The new partnership would have South Africa as Canada's springboard into other southern African countries and eventually the African Continental Free Trade Area, which spans most of the continent, he said. For South Africa, Canada would be the entry point to doing more business in the U.S., Mexico and Latin America.

"We are both, in our own rights, relatively small markets. But based in our regions, we become significant markets," he said.

Shaik said three Canadian firms already operating in South Africa — grain giant AGT Foods, potato company McCain and engineering firm Hatch — could all expand across the continent, if given market access and the right supports.