Yes, I can, and it actually follows nicely on Peggy Nash's question.
We were talking before about why exports have underperformed. Looking forward, there are some good reasons to expect that exports will come back and that the historical relationship with foreign activity will reassert itself. I outlined a number of those reasons in that speech.
It starts with the U.S. market, the U.S. economy. Headline growth in the United States is modest. By any measure they're going through a large fiscal contraction which is taking off headline GDP growth. If you look at underlying private demand, though, it has picked up, and as the effects of fiscal sequestration wear off going forward, you would expect to see U.S. growth strengthen. In many respects, the U.S. really is poised for stronger growth. That will be positive for our exports. As I mentioned before, the U.S. is, and is going to remain, our largest export market.
Secondly there's Europe. We certainly don't expect European growth to accelerate sharply. Europe is no longer contracting. It is now into positive growth, and combined with increased access to that market, that's going to be a positive for our exports. Japan, the third-largest economy in the world, which has been through two decades of stagnation, is now taking bold policy measures. Those are all positive for our export markets. So there are good reasons to believe that foreign demand will pick up.
To come back to the “hoarded cash” as you call it, the table is set for stronger investment. Firms have very good access to capital. They have prefunded; you can see that in their funding decisions. What they need to see is reduction in uncertainty of pickup and demand, and we think that will unlock their investment plans.