 Hello, good morning to everyone connecting from BC and good afternoon to our panelists connecting from sunny and warm Santiago. Welcome to the webinar doing business in Chile, Canada's free trade agreements with Chile and business opportunities for BC companies. My name is Ghana Drost, I'm manager at the Trade Policy and Negotiations Branch, BC Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation. I'm joined today by my colleague Ben Kaliznik, senior manager at the same branch. And before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking today from the territories of the Liguangan speaking peoples, the Esquimald and Cengiz First Nations whose historical relationship with the land continues to this day. So today's webinar doing business in Chile opens up a series of webinars on free trade agreements that Canada has in South America and market opportunities that exist for British Columbian companies like you. So I'm pleased to introduce to you our agenda and speakers for today's webinar. The webinar will last approximately one hour and 30 minutes. And we will start with a presentation on Canada's bilateral free trade agreement with Chile and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for a Trans-Pacific Partnership. Then we will move on to a discussion about expert opportunities and key sectors in the Chilean market. And this discussion will be led by Carlos Rojas Arbolu, Chancellor and Senior Trade Commissioner at the Embassy of Canada in Chile and his team of trade commissioners, Marie Ellen Jacques, Rene Plouffe and Patricia Canettin. So both presentation and discussion will last approximately 20 minutes each. And then we will move to the presentation on support to Canadian exporters available through Canada's Export Credit Agency. This presentation will be delivered by Christian Darrock, Senior Regional Manager at Export Development Canada. We will conclude today's presentations with a talk by Pablo Herrera, President of the Canada Chile Chamber of Commerce, who will speak to the development of commercial relations and business opportunities between our two countries. We have reserved approximately 20-25 minutes for a Q&A session, which today will take place in breakout rooms. So you will receive a link to join breakout rooms via email and in the chat towards the end of the webinar. Please note that you may still send your questions using the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen to raise questions at any time during the webinar. But please try to be as specific as you can and indicate, if possible, who you are directing your questions to. So in the interest of time, we might also take some of those questions to the breakout rooms. So this session is being recorded and presentations will be made available in a post-event email. And if you experience any problems with audio or other technical issues, please send an email, a message to Ben or myself using the chat function. So let's start with the introduction to Canada's trade agreements with Chile. And before we do so, just a few words about the branch I work at. The trade policy and negotiations branch represents BC interests in both international and domestic free trade agreements negotiations, as well as in trade disputes that affect BC. We also run consultations with the BC businesses and stakeholders to better understand your interests and communicate them to the federal government who leads the international trade negotiations. As a heads up, you might hear from us soon on those. And of course, our branch also does free trade agreement outreach sessions like this webinar to ensure that the information on how to take advantage of these agreements is widely known. So here is a quick overview of my presentation. I'll start off with the welcoming remarks by our Minister of State for Trade. And I'll talk about Canada's free trade agreements and the Canada-Chile FTA and CPTPP agreement and then a few opportunities that these agreements offer to companies like you. And as this is our introductory webinar, I'll also cover some tools and support that is available to BC exporters. So the BC Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation aims to make life more affordable for British Columbians by building a strong sustainable economy and improve the standard of living. There are many ways to foster the economic recovery and growth and one way is to encourage you businesses to leverage the opportunities found in free trade agreements and diversify your export markets. And this is our job today. So with this, I'd like to kick it off with a short welcome video from the Minister of State for Trade, who will explain what support is available to you. Hello, I'm George Chow, Minister of State for Trade. I'm pleased to add my support and welcome you to this session. The goal for this session is to share the benefits and opportunity of Canada's domestic and international free trade agreements and to ensure that everyone in BC's diverse regions, communities and sectors receive their information needed. Free trade agreements help open new markets as well as events and protect BC's competitive advantages. They are a critical part of attracting new investment into BC's regions. They apply to all sectors of the economy, including forestry, agricultural, intellectual property, clean tech and mining, to name just a few. I'm proud to say that last year we held close to 50 information sessions like this one with approximately 1500 participants covering all of BC's regions. We have also held sessions for indigenous businesses and women-owned businesses. Now, because of COVID-19, we are continuing the webinars and my hope is we can resume in-person sessions when the time is right. The COVID-19 pandemic has made international trade much more challenging for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, the very good news is Canada has 14 free trade agreements covering 51 countries, including a new Canada, U.S., Mexico agreement and agreement with the European Union, Japan, Korea and many others that use correctly can help lower your costs and provide much needed certainty in these uncertain times. Three trade agreements are complex. My staff are here today to help you understand how they work. I want to ensure that you are supported as you plan for the future. We are also offering help with export and trade readiness throughout export navigator program and we have in-market experts and other resources available in Canada that you will hear about today. I wish you all a successful info session. Thank you. Canada has a first mover advantage and to this day has secured 15 free trade agreements that cover 49 countries, along with two domestic trade agreements. So there were some changes in numbers since the minister's video was recorded. So those agreements give you access to nearly 90% of export markets or about 1.5 billion potential consumers worldwide. And free trade agreements have different coverage and some cover only goods while others cover trade in goods services, financial services, investment, government procurement, temporary entry for business people. And these are usually the later trade agreements such as USMA or the CETA, the Canada European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, Canada's South Korea Trade Agreement or the CPTPP. A few older agreements that have undergone a series of modernizations and also have an extended coverage and Canada Chile Free Trade Agreement is one of them. And on this slide you can see that some free trade agreements overlap and the good news for you is that you can choose under which free trade agreement you want to claim preferential terms of trade. And this is not the case for Chile yet, but Chile and Canada have a bilateral free trade agreement in place. And both Canada and Chile are parties to the CPTPP, although Chile has not ratified it yet. And in addition to that, a few years ago, the discussions started around a free trade agreement between Canada and Pacific Alliance to which Chile is party to. So potentially at some point in the future, you'll need to decide under which free trade agreement with Chile you want to claim preferential treatment. And this overlap of free trade agreements will also give you more flexibility and additional benefits. So now let's take a deeper dive into the Canada Chile Free Trade Agreement or the CCFTA. Let's start with some not so widely known, but important facts. So the CCFTA entered into force back in 1997, and it was special for several reasons. So first, it is Canada's first free trade agreement in South America. And second, it was Chile's first comprehensive free trade agreement with any country. And it was also modeled on the NAFTA, so on the predecessor of PUSMA. The agreement was subject to a series of updates, including more tariff phase out periods for select products and updated rules of origin. There was government procurement chapter that was added, chapter on financial services. There was updated dispute settlement mechanism and customs procedures chapter as well. There were several modernizations of provisions on senator and fetus sanitary measures, as well as technical barriers to trade. So today, Canada is an important trading partner for Chile. It supplies 14% of Chile's imports of cereals, 15% of its imports of vegetable oil, and 22% of Chile's imports of leguminous vegetables. So a few years ago, François Philippe Champagne in his speech in Santiago at the Canada-Chile Chamber of Commerce said that Canada and Chile may be at opposite ends of the American continent, but we are both Pacific nations resisting the tide of protectionism. And it is even more so true for BC. BC ranks number four among Canadian provinces exporting to Chile. And since 1997, we have more than doubled our exports there. And due to our geographical location, our maritime route to Chilean markets is also the shortest compared to other provinces. So the key BC experts include vituminous coal, minerals, machinery, and some growing trends are seen in food preparations, pet food, and also specialized machinery and its components. So now let's briefly see what opportunities the CCFTA offers to BC exporters of goods. It is useful to note that Chile's most favorite nations' tariffs are a flat 6% except on some agriculture products. And at the time of entering to force, the CCFTA provided duty-free access to 75% of Canadian exports to Chile. And there were also cuts, further tariff cuts in subsequent tariff phaseouts. So on this slide, you can see some tariffs that have been eliminated for agri-food and agricultural goods, fish and seafood and forestry products and some minerals. And some products, as you can see, still face tariffs today. For example, dairy meat and some food preparations. So very important point here is that if you wish to take advantage of the preferential tariff treatment under Canada-Chile FTA or any other free trade agreement, you need to claim it. So Chilean customs authorities will not assume that your products qualify for 0% tariff just because it was shipped by a Canadian company or from Canada. And happy to talk about it in more details in a breakout room at the end of the webinar. So in today's new age of free trade agreements and benefits portrayed go just beyond the effect of lower tariffs. And FTAs, they provide greater certainty and reduce perceived business risk while making doing business more transparent and predictable for you. Since signing its free trade agreement with Canada in back in 1997, Chile has significantly expanded its network of free trade agreements with other countries, like Mexico, the United States, European Union, China, South Korea, CPTPP countries, Mercosur. And of course, the CCFTA was instrumental for Canada at the beginning, but it also continues to provide VC and Canadian exporters with a level playing field with other competitors in the Chilean market. And the modernization exercises that the agreement has undergone, they brought even more coverage and greater certainty for doing business. Additional chapters, for example, on financial services allow access to markets for cross-border provision of financial services and for investment in financial institutions. Modernization or modernized access to government procurement includes provisions for electronic tendering, which was not the case back in when the agreement was signed. And speaking of the government procurement under the CCFTA, so under this agreement, Canada and Chile agreed to a negative list approach, which means that the agreement covers the procurement of all goods and services unless otherwise specified. And the list of entities that are covered are central and regional governments for Chile, as well as the port authorities. So in the table on this slide, you can see the approximate thresholds and thresholds. They give you an idea about the amount the procurement contract has to be above so that it can be beat on by a Canadian company under the CCFTA. You can see they are pretty low for procurement by central government and regional government compared to other Canada's free trade agreements. And the coverage on the thresholds that are on this slide is that they are rounded and converted in Canadian dollars for your convenience only. And the contracts that you'll see on the Chilean procurement platforms, they'll be in Chile and Peso, and I'm sure that Carlos and his team will be able to assist you with that. So now let's take a look at the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-specific partnership agreement to which Chile is party 2. So the CPTPP is one of Canada's most recently implemented free trade agreement. It entered into force at the end of 2018 for the majority of its members. And now it's in force for eight members. So Canada, Australia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Peru. So Chile has still to ratify this agreement. And once Chile ratifies the CPTPP, the agreement will provide preferential market access that follows similar modernized trade rules as the CCFTA does. And it will give you and other Canadian exporters greater flexibility in terms of using inputs from the CPTPP members. So on investment, the CPTPP will allow BC and Canadian companies to invest with greater confidence in Chile and offer protections from unfair and discriminatory treatment as well as greater predictability and transparency. So new commitments on temporary entry of business people will also make it easier for you to temporarily move high-skilled professionals and technicians to Chile. And yeah, basically, this is just a high-level overview of some benefits that the CPTPP will provide to Canadian companies in the Chilean market once Chile ratifies this agreement. But there are many other advantages and I just have to curtail this in the interest of time. So now let's have a quick look at the tools and trade support services that could be of use to you for doing business in Chile or other international markets. So on this slide, you can see the tool called Canada's Tariff Finder. It is a very useful tool that will help you to see the tariffs that your products face in Chile or other markets where Canada has free trade agreements. So this is a really user-friendly tool and all you need is the market of interest and the harmonized systems code or keyword for your product to get started. So this tool will tell you the rate under free trade agreement, whether there are any phase-outs and how the rate compares to the rate that the country applies to products from countries it doesn't have a free trade agreement with. So BC has a network of trade and investment representatives that are located worldwide and you might know from your own experience that sometimes it can be tough to know what's going on in a market halfway across the globe and let alone connecting with someone you can trust to do business with and that is why our network of BC trade and investment representatives shown on this map now has grown up to 16 offices covering all our major markets and the goal of the trade representatives is to help international businesses discover the benefits of British Columbia as a destination for investment and also a partner for trade and innovation but the aim is also to help you, BC businesses, contact potential buyers or investors or other players in global markets and in some markets as it is the case for South America for example we don't have trade representatives and we rely on Canada's trade commissioner service. So just a quick slide before I give floor to the trade commissioner service in Chile so this is another trade support program I'd like to highlight so it is called BC expert navigator program unlike the trade and investment representative network BC expert navigator advisors allocated closer to home and this program offers you access to community-based expert specialists who will provide a personalized and step-by-step approach to exploring and help connect you to market information, expert programs or financial services and again business development experts so these advisors they are specifically geared towards assisting those of you based in BC regions as opposed to lower mainland or capital region areas so this map shows that where the services are provided by the advisors and the program also has advisors that work specifically with women, indigenous and youth owned businesses. So I'll wrap my presentation here I hope it was not too technical and I will close by saying that we continue to support people and businesses in the recovery from the pandemic by assisting with leveraging opportunities in Canada's free trade agreements and if this is something that you are considering be it in South America, Asia, Europe or other markets please contact me and I'll make sure that you get the information and assistance you need so now without further ado I'd like to hand it over to Carlos Rojas Urbulo and his team for discussion of key sessions and expert opportunities in the Chilean market so Carlos over to you. Well let me let me first start by thanking you and thanking the government British Columbia for this opportunity to have a conversation with exporters from BC regarding Chile the Chilean context opportunities for doing business and frankly Canada's place in this country and second I find that your presentation was quite complete so I will try to adapt as I go and perhaps offer comments and offer a little bit more context with regards to some of the latest and more recent events that are important for exporters to know about as they embark on doing business in this country and I'd like to start this by first actually introducing the embassy team we do have a number of people on the call and you've mentioned their names but once again if I can ask my colleagues to put their camera we have Mariellen Jacques who is a trade commissioner and recently arrived in Santiago we have René Pruf as well one of our trade commissioners and Patricio Cañete who's one of our trade commissioners as well and we're all part of the same team so EDC is co-located with the embassy and I know that Cristian Ruoc who's managing the EDC portfolios will have an opportunity to expand on what EDC is doing in Chile and myself I'm also recently arrived three months now in Santiago although with the team for about five months and I managed the commercial and investment program and in government lingo we call ourselves in my case senior trade commissioner and counselor so perhaps taking a bit of a step back it's important for you to know that we have a long history of of relations with Chile we are celebrating 80 years of diplomatic relations but we know that way before that there were other people to people's exchanges of course but I'd say and I have to agree with what Ghana was indicating that the in terms of the economic relation the FTA has been fundamental instrumental and this year we're celebrating 25 years since then and as it was noted before the growth of our bilateral trade has quadrupled in the last 25 years now 2.6 billion dollars of bilateral trade which is not insignificant if you compared to other markets in the region and if you look at how that growth has taken place over the last several decades so we're we're excited about that because it means that this year we're going to try to do our best to highlight some of those emerging opportunities to celebrate not only where we see eye to eye but of course try to offer you and other Canadian companies the best advice that we can to enter this market and work with Canadian and with with Chilean companies I'm not going to get into the different sectors of exports and imports because I know that Ghana cover that simply to say that currently Chile is exporting more to Canada than we are exporting to Chile by about 600 million dollars so 1.6 of exports to Canada versus about a billion or so a little under a billion for exports to Chile and certainly there's a lot of potential for growth because we believe that this is a mature relationship but at the same time one where it is easy enough to do business there's a there's a long tradition of doing business and trading in this country some of you might have read of course that this country as in Canada is a trading nation and as in Canada has exploded of course their natural resources and hence the reason why they're also big on on not just on the agricultural side of course but exploding resources on the mining sector and that connects me to also that important presence which is part I guess of the Canadian connection to Chile the important presence of our Canadian investors in Chile if you look at the Canadian statistics right now we're looking at 22 billion dollars of investment 23 billion dollars certainly if you ask the Chilean authorities they'll give you a number that is much larger than that but independently of that it's still a very large number currently 50 percent of so it's in the mining sector but then you get into the energy sector in financial services and financial sector excuse me infrastructure and I think I mentioned energy as well which are the other big big pieces of this investment but if we also look at it from the other perspective Chile has also significantly invested in Canada they have currently 1.4 billion dollars of investment so my point here is that both on trade and on investment it's a it's a a long history relationship in terms of a relationship there's one where there's a certainly a level of maturity and one that has a really favorable perspectives for growth getting a little bit into why Chile versus a number of other countries because we very much understand of course that we live in a in a competitive world and you as other companies has to look for where to get the most out of it of your investment and it's certainly you know Chile has if we look at the region has been a country of stability there's a certain level of institutional stability over the last several decades granted you might say in the last little while there have been a certain number of issues like the estallido social in the I guess the translation would be the social explosion or yeah that's sort of a line with the translation and but that that social unrest that took that took place into 19 plus the pandemic hasn't really stopped this country from from really maintaining its place in the region and Ghana mentioned it their openness to international trade you also have 30 plus FTAs across the world and they they play I we believe a preferential place within within Latin America and frankly that is the reason also why Chile is if not the number one destination for investments in South America but I but I believe as well in Latin America but if not the first among the first so in this openness of doing business and kind of opening to international trade you should also know that via Chile or through Chile you can access some other platforms within the region including you know Mercosur Mercosur as a trading block and there are some elements there that we can get into a little bit later in our conversation but I guess what I'm saying is truly trying to reinforce some of the messages that Ghana already noted and as I said in spite of the fact that the pandemic and the estallido social played a super important role in this country in the last years and including today we trust and we believe and this is our read that the country headed in a good direction I did want to perhaps add just one more piece which is about context and I think it's important for you for you to be aware as well not just on the specific opportunities on your sectors of interest but a couple of things this estallido social that I was mentioning about you know social arrest in 2019 and I guess you know a bit of a reflection of some of the inequalities of this country because on the one hand very modern lots of infrastructure lots of growth stability as I mentioned before open to business but on the other hand among the OECD countries Chile is one of those countries that is where you can see some important inequalities and I think that's that's something that should be mentioned progress is being made of course but it is a long term project and with that comes of course what has that social arrest meant going forward which then links to the next thing that I wanted to say which is you will have seen that we have now an incoming administration that will take take over in on in March on March 11th it's a it's a it's a government you know to the left and I guess moderating their views and their perspectives so moving a little bit more to the center but still to the left and that has raised some concerns by by by companies by investors from from Canada and from other countries about that openness right and that and that track record that they have in terms of stability in terms of opportunities for doing business internationally and if you if you start looking at a little bit of the signals that have come out you'll see that there's a there's a moderation on on on how the incoming government is trying to position yourself and two examples of that is the new minister of or rather the incoming minister of finance is the I guess the the outgoing head of the central bank which is frankly a reassuring measure for for those that are watching the economy and trade and investment and two if you look at the cabinet certainly there's a generational change because you have a lot of individuals that are in their thirties and their forties and you know early fifties but also moderation and diversity and I think that's telling of the changing world but it's also telling of how perhaps Chile is progressive in in in their ways and interviews and frankly we've seen very favorably that you know that signal and and and of course very very keen on on on seeing this feminist approach that the incoming administration is is taking I believe is 63% or so or a little bit more of women being named to cabinet very capable very experienced and so solid choices and and perhaps um you know one last thing would be how Chile has managed the pandemic very early on investments were made in purchasing vaccines from across the from China but also I now from across the world and from the US and others and they are in their fourth round of vaccination they put in place a number of restrictions throughout the last you know year and a half that puts Chile in a in a um perhaps not in a favorable position but in a better position vis-a-vis a number of their of their countries in the region so so those two items right the three items the social the incoming new government and the covid to me and to us speaks to how Chile is um um certainly um um taken action on a number of key issues is demonstrating progressive views is in the midst of this generational change as the government moves from from the pinata government into the new government and again reassuring reassuring measures with respect to to how they would like to pursue a business and and continue to attract investment so I like to end by perhaps just saying a few things about how we are looking at the sectors of opportunity and as you might have heard in other conversations with with other embassies across the world we also look at some of the priority and some of the sectors of focus and I know that my colleagues and I will get into some of the specifics during the q and a's and do and the section the breakout rooms so I'm simply going to outline what what what we can get into a little bit later following the presentations so we're absolutely keeping an eye on you know as I said the mining sector infrastructure services and capital projects clean tech education sector and a horizontal sector of course responsible business conduct that we used to call corporate such a responsibility but as well as sectors of focus such as agriculture and agri-food aerospace and defense forestry ict and issues that relate to market access and sps and important to note and I make the link to what ganna was saying earlier when he talked when we talk about trade policy we are actually keeping our eye on a number of different conversations and some of which were mentioned relate to you know ctp pp of course the current fta the the alliance with some of the other countries in south america and I think that is a whole set of of dialogue and engagement and economic diplomacy that goes on kind of behind the scenes to try to position our message position canada's message and consequently try to position our companies so there is a true value added and importance to those exchanges that happen perhaps beyond the the strict transaction between companies and exporters and buyers and the embassy at this stage is trying to engage early the government in some of with respect to the inner circle of the incoming administration and is also engaging in a conversation with respect to some of these trade policy related related um um thematics or related related points so um I will perhaps um stop there I I know that I've briefly introduced some members of the team I failed to say that in total we are 12 members of the team including our colleagues from EDC that are co-located with our embassy we close we work very closely with the political section as well and we work very closely with our ambassador who's obviously our our our leader here in terms of representation and and frankly um we're there for you and to support you and and if there's anything that we can do to advance the conversation either now or subsequently we'll be happy to do so so I'll leave it at that Gana thank you for the opportunity and looking forward to the other piece of the conversation on more specifics thanks so much Carlos thanks for this for the introduction of of the opportunities of the key sectors and and of your team I already see there are some questions that are coming through Q&A section and your members of the team are already answering them so I just wanted to encourage the audience to keep those questions coming and also to remind you that we'll have breakout rooms at the end of the webinar so please monitor your emails as well as you will soon receive a link that will allow you to join the breakout rooms at the end but we are still here and now I'm happy to pass the floor to Christian Darok the senior manager the senior regional manager for expert development Canada in Chile for his portion of the presentation so Christian over to you and I'm about to share your presentation here thank you Gana for inviting EDC Chile to to present today we'll do a quick presentation I'm I'm I'm based in Chile and I manage the Chilean office so next slide please so basically EDC was created as a Crown Corporation in in 1944 and with the where the Canadian Trade Agency of Canada our main mandate is to support Canadian suppliers and investors to go and and and grow internationally that is this is our main mandate if you go to the next one Gana please so basically our our core business is to provide financing and ensuring solutions to to facilitate international trade and additionally we have some free of charge services that are these are two programs one of them is called market knowledge and also we have the connection program that I will describe later on next one please so EDC were part of the large of a larger ecosystem where we the main intention is to support Canadian exports in the public sector we we partnered with with the with the CES of course our main partner but also with provincial government like BC in sometimes we also partnered with the BBC based in Vancouver this is a cooperation also Crown Corporation that is focused on early stages in companies so they provide venture capital for startups we also partnered with the CCC that they mainly managed the the government to government contracts and we are there to finance those contracts in case some governments foreign governments want to do so and sort of that they have another problem with my computer now it's okay sorry about that in the private sector we also partnered with commercial banks and insurance companies across Canada so these are the ecosystem where we navigate and we're one of the pieces to support the Canadian trade next one please some numbers for you to know about EDC we serve every year we serve more or less 24 000 Canadian clients 65 percent of them are Canadian medium-sized enterprises and then also we conducted close to 10 000 transactional deals last year in order to support those clients we also have some special programs that we're really proud of and they are new to DC we have a specific programs where we support clean tech companies also women led our own businesses and also indigenous business so in those three special programs we facilitated deals for up to seven billion in the last few years and in in in these particular cases we're also able to offer equity to help them to advance their business next one please probably this is the more relevant slide for today these are these are our programs the third one is financing and the idea here is is to provide access to capital for you to fund your investment working capital and and also inventory so basically some example here could be we provide guarantee for up to 100 percent for your bank I mean to your bank so they can issue performance bonds or letter of credit for your international contracts another example is is our bank guarantee solution that basically we provide 100 percent of guarantee again to your bank so they can issue a line of credit or a loan for you in order that you can escalate your business and go internationally another example is the buyer financing basically in cases where your international buyer asks you for financing for vendor financing we were able to do that on your behalf and typically we finance up to 85 percent of the value of the contract the second program I would like to highlight is the insurance program the credit insurance this is the typical risk mitigation tool basically here we can we're able to secure your account receivables or export sales for up to 90 percent of the total on a single name basis or portfolio basis and and also allow you to enter into I mean to offer to your international clients payment terms for up to 360 days the third program is the knowledge program this is relatively new to DC here we the objective is to help you to make informed decisions when you when you consider to enter into new into new foreign markets basically we we have tools information reports at your disposal in our website external website so you can access that it's very easy to to register it's free of charge that is important always and also you can attend to our webinars around different topics and markets the last program also not new and this has been placed for a few years is the connection program here basically we our objective is to connect you with our 22 international buyers that are present in the participating the key sector of the economy mainly forestry mining infrastructure retail and agree food next one please so this is our presence our our headquarters is in Ottawa but we have 20 regional offices across Canada including the one that is relevant to you which is Vancouver office we also have 21 international representations including the one in Chile the one that I live and also we have offices in other offices in in latin america like those in Peru, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil next one please this one yes so the the Chile the Chile office is quite active we're lucky that all of the EDC programs products and solution are active and open in Chile as an example last year we supported 360 Canadian clients in in this country from several sectors and and from several provinces as well next one on the on the on the connection program this is the fourth program I mentioned before Chile is the country that has probably the most number of international relationship we have seven out of the 22 that I explained before and those are mainly around this main two clusters we have in Chile the mining and forestry you can see here relevant names Codelcos, Condida, BHP, Araucos, CMPC basically we do have we have an MOU with them where they they do the best the best effort to to consider Canadian suppliers and these companies are leading companies in their sectors and have a large CAPEX OPEX and relevant spend in technology and innovation so the objective again for this program is to connect you with these corporations in case there is a good fit between your solution and their short-term and medium-term procurement needs so this is a very focused program and typically here we try to advance the sector of the future in Canada like agri-food, clean tech, advanced technologies and also digital business next one please just to complete my presentation the for the for the financing and insurance program the best way for you is to connect directly with the Vancouver office there they will be assigning to you an account manager that will help you to navigate through the different programs and services for the market knowledge as I said it's relatively easy to register online and you can have access to the different events that we also organize in partnership with GAC or the Provisional Government and finally for the connection opportunities and those based in Chile like the seven I mentioned before you can you can always contact us in Chile at any time thank you thank you so much Christian thanks for your presentation that that was great I think it provided an overview for the participants of the services that Expert Development Canada can provide to them and how it can assist them to be to be successful in the international markets so now without further ado we have one more presentation so I'm pleased to introduce Pablo Herrera President of Canada to the Chamber of Commerce for his portion of presentation before we move into the breakout rooms so Pablo over to you thank you thank you very much and hello everyone it's a pleasure to be today with you and share with you what what the Chilean Canadian Chamber of Commerce is in Chile this is a short corporate presentation I'm happy to answer questions in the breakout sessions so briefly our chamber is as you can imagine is a nonprofit organization we have more than 20 years in Chile in the market we have more than 100 corporate members our main mission is as you see there to promote the progressive development of business and relations between Chile and Canada this couple of remarkable relations between Canada and Chile one is what we just have spoken this this morning is the free trade agreement that was signed off in 1997 and we're celebrating the 35th anniversary year the other one is the agreement to avoid double taxation also is the agreement that was signed off in 1999 and also I think it's important to take into account the relevance of a relation the business relationship between Canada and Chile as 2020 2021 actually Canada is third largest commercial partner trading more than 31.5 billion dollars in Chile and on the other side Chile is Canada's seventh commercial partner so so as you can see we have a very very close relationship for for a long time and deeply in the different sectors that we will talk later during this webinar other important aspects of this are you know the presence of and the importance of this investment in Chile reflecting in terms of you know how much to represent in the total investment in America so the whole the total investment of Canada in America to represent 34.5% and total of the Canadian investments worldwide to represent to represent 11.4% so until it is pretty much a very important business partner for for Canadian business so where those companies are present in Chile as we have said before I mean the main sectors are mining finance engineering energy utilities have the infrastructure chemical industry professional services of course agriculture as we we are part of the free trade agreement in between Chile and Canada considering all the exports that we get from from Canada what we do what are kind of services that we provide for for our members you know one of one of the the values of this camera is the the connection and the way that we build relationships between the public and the private sector so we have straight access to you know ministry of finance and economy we work very closely with the invest Chile is the agency that promote investments of of foreign countries in Chile we work with Pro Chile that promotes investments from Chile an expert from Chile to abroad considering also including in Canada of course we have a very close relationship with the ministry of foreign affairs when it comes to you know different issues or situations that our Canadian companies in Chile are facing we're we have a straight contact with them and of course we're working very close with the with the embassy so we team up in those situations so also we're very close for a subsection of the economy economic foreign affairs called sub-race that has a straight relationship with the with the all the commercial agreements that Chile has abroad so as you can see we have many connections we're very supportive to our members as they requested in terms of you know access and relationships when when they need it also we we do a lot of face-to-face networking activities we do different kind of sessions in the year with authorities we do technical seminars we do webinars and as we're going through the pandemic we have changed our way to to interact with our members and with the private and public sector we like for the most part you know try to do in-person activities but you know through the reasons that we have experienced through COVID I mean most of our events have been in on webinars but the the the good thing about that is that anybody can access it not only from Chile but for example from for where you are right now also we we permanent do meetings for our partners in general meetings just to get you know our members networking to to build up relationships and connections I think with that that's one of the most important things that we believe that that we have to provide value to to our members also we do trade visits we do it from Chile to Canada from Canada to Chile this is as you can see we're closing tmx in in Toronto or 2019 we took the minister of finance from Chile all the way to to Canada we we did this with the support of the embassy of Canada and Chile and then the Chilean in Canada and also with the the board of trade the chamber in Toronto that also was helping us and we did a visit to to Toronto to Montreal and Ottawa and as well we have done trade visits to Chile from private companies family owned or or a family owned company as well as we have done a virtual trade visits with the SMEs and especially with the startups from Canada to Chile and from Chile and Canada trying to do an emerging program for them to get part of the ecosystem of venture capital and entrepreneurship in in Canada as well so we're you know in both ends like very new business SMEs to you know large you know companies or or funds that they're coming to invest in in large sectors in Chile also we have different platforms to provide information for our partners the members you know we have you know newsletters we're in every media that you can imagine you know Instagram Facebook LinkedIn and we have our news clippers so we provide news every day for all our members we try to keep everybody up to date in what's going on in the country and also we'll not only focus on on the economic side and business side but also we focus in in some political and social aspects we we launched a year ago an initiative about trust related to the book that was written it was written thereby the the honorable former governor of Canada and David Johnson so who we say who we we work together with embassy on the chamber and we did several different webinars related to the concept of trust based on his book and this was something very well received by the Chilean authorities and by the citizens in this country going through the changes of the country facing as Carlos was mentioned so so we do those kind of activities as well and what other value initiatives we do we help companies when they needed to do one-on-one business meetings we do working committees by economic sector to try to develop papers and influence and on laws and be part of those discussions we have a platform to publish corporate information when our members are launching new products they're arriving to the country well they want to inform something to the community we help them to do that as well we coordinate work with other Canadians members of Latin America so we try to have a little bit of network network within us and and also we do alliances for our members in services and goods for benefits both entities this is our board we're very honored by the board that we have I'm acting as the president right now we have Michael Gordon the Canadian ambassador in Chile we have many of CCT executives from large Canadian companies they're present here in the minor sector engineering professional services etc energy so we're candidates very well represented to their companies in Chile and all of them they're gentlemen and women that they have they have a very influential position in terms of the Kenyan society and the government as well in terms of facilitate connections and dialogue when when it's needed so that's what I want to share with today regarding the December later on I think we're going to have a breakout session and I'm happy to answer more questions as an overview I think country is a great country to invest I think it's a very stable it's very aligned with the international laws promote the free commerce free trade an open economy so regardless that Chile is going through a social movement and the change in the government as Carlos was explaining and referring you know more and more with the more moderate speech from from the new authorities so we have a strong belief and that's what most of the large Canadian investors have said in Chile that they trust in Chile that they want to stay in Chile and they want to keep investing for a long time so hopefully that is a good backup for all of you and I see and and you can see Chile as the next destination for for your investments and for your products and services so with that I have to see you gather thank you thank you so much Pablo thanks for this great overview of the chamber and its services and the the great work that you and your members do I'm sure that the companies will have more questions to you in the breakout rooms