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What our application in the other three countries has demonstrated is the incredible interest by the small and medium-sized community in this country in this kind of partnership. It's important for us to have presence in these countries with enormously growing markets, and it's very hard, especially for small companies, to do so. The partnership work that we do is very relevant to them.
For example, we've had over 500 expressions of interest of Canadian groups wanting to partner with China, representing 4,000 scientists and engineers at both ends. An important point to note is that 65% of the Canadian lead applicants are Canadians who have origins in China and recent origins in China. Most came as doctoral students, as post-doctoral fellows, or as other exchange students, reinforcing the recommendations presented by the report on international education, released just recently, on the value created by the international exchange of students.
Technology partnership leads to market application. We have a project with a company in Alberta, called Alta Genetics, which develops basically genetic testing of dairy herds to improve the safety and the quality of meat. It has already an investment of $200,000 through our program, over $7 million in revenue, and a presence in the Chinese market.
We've also determined that global partnerships stimulate the commercialization of technology from university to industry, as some 50% of our current Canadian applicants are themselves partnerships between academia and industry. This is important in the context of implementing the recommendation of the Jenkins report for trying to commercialize technology from academia to industry, an important issue for Canada.
This issue is something that's important for all governments around the world. Israel, a country with one-seventh the GDP of Canada, spends $250 million every year to partner its technology-based companies with over 25 countries around the world.
The Chinese program, for its part, has increased 20-fold in the last eight years. That trend is continuing, to a point where it will be difficult to engage China commercially without engaging it technologically.
The current program is basically $1 million per year per country. It doesn't come close to delivering on the potential and the opportunity.
Here we are in sync, in total sync, with experts in trade policy and senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in proposing a sustainable amount in the order of $20 million a year for five years. Based on our experience, what will this deliver? It will deliver something in the order of half a billion dollars' worth of collaborative research effort between Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises and the four countries in question, representing an expected $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue, with hundreds of high-value-added jobs.
Members of the committee, technology leads to trade, not the other way around. This is a major shift in the realities of international commerce. This will increasingly be so in the years ahead, as advancing innovation has become the major force of change in the world. By building on our strengths and in fact our comparative advantages, Canada can make important inroads in the growth markets of the world with modest but strategic and highly leveraged investments, such as the program I described. This will give meaning to the definition of what constitutes an integrated trade policy, which is an important agenda for this government.
As we have heard from many wise sources, including the Governor of the Bank of Canada, our market competitiveness will no longer come from a lower dollar but from improved market presence in high-growth economies. Programs such as ours give practical action items that achieve this very objective.
Thank you.