Thanks.
From our point of view, SNC-Lavalin is working in most of the African countries. I think last year we were in something like 27 African countries working, including the Maghreb, including North Africa.
It's very important to us, and it's important to our clients in those countries, to have a Canadian government presence, senior-level visits. Just right now, I think, Lucien is taking a mission to Angola next week, and our people who have been looking at the Angolan market are saying we need a Canadian minister here, we need a Canadian embassy here. This is a country like Mozambique, emerging from conflict. It's very wealthy. It needs Canadian business. It needs Canadian governance, a relationship.
There's great potential there. We're working there, we've been working on a project there for the last couple of years. But it's very difficult to do it. As Lucien says, so many of our competitors are there on the spot. And it's a sign of respect, among other things. Just having business people going to look for contracts is a little different from establishing a respectful diplomatic relationship, having cultural exchanges, educational exchanges that flesh out a relationship.
We're having fewer embassies, fewer trade commissioners, and a smaller presence in what is clearly, as Lucien says, a very important emerging market.
Just by the by, last year we did a little under $1 billion in business in Africa. The year before it was about $1.3 billion. So it's a major market for us in a number of sectors, and it has incredible...the prospects for the future are very rich. But we need to have Canadians there on the spot. You can't deal with people who you don't know.