Thank you.
I think we need to talk about the context of how large Canadian economic presence is in the country, and it's very small. Why is it small? Since 1992 we have not been promoting the economic exchange. So if companies have come to us and talked to missions, to the department, we have taken the perspective of discussing corporate social responsibility, discussing the role of companies in a warfare situation. We've been discussing these kinds of things, and that has in a sense been a disincentive, a disinvestment, right from the word go, because companies have not wished to participate largely. There are some companies that have. I mentioned that 82% of our commercial activity of exports is around foodstuff, which I think most would agree is probably good for the people in a general sense.
On the import side, the one company that is producing most of the gold has actually been taken off the list by the NGOs in the United States for disinvestment because they are--how best to describe it?--a poster child, one of the best examples of sustainable development, of working in the community. This is according to the NGO rather than from our facts and figures. What we see is a company that has employed over 500 people in jobs that are sustainable, and it isn't part of warring factions. They've built the churches, schools, mosques, hospitals. They've done the traditional good corporate social responsibility, and they've gone a bit farther. Now, this is not a company that is a controlling shareholder in the whole activity.
I think your question is really a difficult one, because it gets to the heart of it. How can you proceed with disinvestment if we don't have very much, and yet, at the same time, get the point across that this is an activity by the Government of Canada, by Canadians, that we don't appreciate and that we don't support what's happening in the region.
So I absolutely agree with you that it's continually talking to companies. You've seen the examples of big companies that were there in the past. They were counselled. They were talked to. They participated in discussions. And most of them have withdrawn.