What's going on within the international bond markets right now is really interesting. Just to step back, if we look at global capital markets and how they've changed in the last decade, a decade ago equity markets—stocks—were twice as big by volume as bonds. Now the international bond market is valued at $95 trillion, and it's roughly twice the size of the global equity market. There has been a shift in terms of the importance of capital flows, and bond markets are the primary vehicle.
To answer your question on how we might be able to get involved, most countries have development plans, whether it's Mexico or the Congo. The Congo, for instance, has plans to enhance its energy generation from the Congo River, which has approximately one-twelfth of the world's hydro energy capacity right there on one river. It's a massive river. It could power a substantial portion of Africa, even on its growth trajectory. They need substantial capital to properly build the hydro generators and the transmission lines to get the energy to the domestic market and to the export markets. They don't have the capital right now to do it themselves.
There are two choices available to them. One is to make a deal with the Chinese. The Chinese will say that they'll build it in exchange for mineral concessions. Then they box us out, and they get the mineral concessions on advantageous terms.
Another way is emerging. The Asian Development Bank has done this in many cases, and the World Bank has done about 20 of these deals. For example, a country could say that they need to raise $2 billion to finance all the costs of a project, and they'll make it a sovereign issue. But they have junk status in terms of their credit rating, so they'll make an arrangement whereby Canada will backstop it. If they don't pay the money back, we could be on the hook for part of it, so in return, SNC-Lavalin and Brookfield and Boralex and other large Canadian firms get front-of-the-line access to build it.
This is how the world works. I'm not saying that I'm the biggest fan of the tied-aid approach, but nations, if they're going to put their credit on the line, have to have some benefit.
In terms of the financial risk to our country, because we have a really solid financial standing in the international community and some might worry about what this might do to it, the way EDC does these things when they backstop a loan is to reinsure it out. They sell off all the risk, and it doesn't come back to bite us. You can ramp it up slowly, see how it goes, and make sure that the Canadian companies are getting the business. The deal flow in this area is the fastest-growing area of deal flow in the world on a per cent basis.