Thank you very much.
I'll just speak very briefly then to the strategies that are currently under development in my area.
For fiscal year 2005-06, we developed some initial strategies for China, Brazil, the U.S., and Mexico. You've just heard from my colleague about the U.S. strategy. For this fiscal year we'll be working on strategies for India, Korea, Russia, ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the European Union.
I'll be happy to answer questions further on this, but right now I'll give you a brief overview of our approach to the important emerging markets of China, India, and Brazil.
First, why China? It's an obvious choice. It's clearly a priority because of the sheer magnitude of the market and the size of its population. The increasing prosperity of its citizens has made them greater consumers. China's infrastructure has undergone considerable development in recent years, making it easier to reach those consumers.
China is a key link to the global value chains that you heard about earlier, but we need to be conscious of other links in those chains. For example, we need to be conscious of the fact that when we export inputs to Korea, those inputs may then be re-exported to China. We need to know what's going on in the supply chain related to Korea so we can take advantage of China and that market.
We're identifying priority sectors in each of these markets. For China, we've identified the following sectors: agriculture and agri-food, information and communications technology, building products and construction, environmental equipment and services, energy resources and mining, and health and biotechnology. In order to reflect the growing priority of China for our clients, we're in the process of diverting some of our resources to our missions to better serve the Canadian business community.
India, of course, is also a priority emerging market. As with China, this is due in part to the magnitude of the market itself and the size of the population, but it's also due to the rapidly increasing educated middle-class and its rapidly expanding economy. For India, the priority sectors include agriculture and agri-food, information and communications technology, infrastructure and transportation, building products and construction, environmental industries, energy resources and mining, life sciences, and enabling services including financial services and education. In order to reflect India's priority, we are proposing to add a new science and technology position to our mission in New Delhi.
Brazil is the third market that I will talk to you about today. This is a priority market due to its dominant political and economic power in South America. It is the centre of future continent-wide road, river, rail, pipeline, and electrical power transmission networks. It has enormous potential as a partner and as a client, but also as a competitor. Here our priority sectors are agriculture and agri-food, oil and gas equipment and services, electric power, environment, forestry, information communications technology, mining, and cultural industries.
I thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to you today. We all look forward to answering your questions.