Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It is indeed a pleasure for me to be here as well, Ambassador. This is my first committee meeting that I'm attending, so I appreciate the presentation very much. It was very thorough and I learned a great deal about your country.
As you know, from my earlier discussions with many people in the trade industry and from speaking to many of my colleagues, one of the issues I want to raise with you today is with respect to how Chile brands itself among the other emerging countries.
Canada obviously is a trading nation. The vast majority of the jobs that we have in this country are directly or indirectly impacted by trade—three-quarters, I have been told. We recognize that we have a strong relationship with the United States, but we need to focus on emerging markets. Traditionally when we speak of emerging markets, we speak of either China or India, Brazil or Korea, but Chile never seems to get the attention it deserves. Based on your GDP forecast numbers and your economic growth projections, it is an emerging market.
Chile does have strong economic growth, and we have a trading relationship. We have had a trade agreement since 1997 with you, as you indicated in your presentation. We've been trading for about ten years, but there seems to be a lack of attention and focus on Chile by Canada, or in general when the discussion of emerging markets takes place. Chile doesn't seem to come to the forefront on that. I think part of that has to do with the fact that when we look at the numbers you showed earlier, since 1996 or 1997 up until now in terms of trade, the numbers haven't increased much. We started at, I think, $757 million in 1996, and now we're at $2.1 billion, so there hasn't been that trade increase in absolute numbers.
I was wondering why we've had this slow start or why there is very minimal trade, in light of the fact that we have this trade agreement with each other. Secondly, why isn't Chile part of the emerging market strategy that is commonly discussed with respect to many of the trade discussions that I have had at least? That also feeds into how we reach our full, maximum potential in terms of trade. And according to you, based on these questions, what do you think some of the challenges are going forward?