Sure.
Last week we released our second volume of the Canada Project, called Mission Possible, a Canadian Resources Strategy for the Boom and Beyond. We focused on the rising global demand for natural resources, which comes primarily from Asia, and basically the fast pace in terms of economic growth in China and India. We have a population in China, with respect to the middle class, of 200 million at the moment. We're looking at it rising to 400 million by 2010.
In India they have a middle class of about 90 million, and growing fast. All these people have higher incomes, and they are looking for things that basically we wouldn't think they would purchase in the past, including motor vehicles, electric appliances, housing, the various gadgets that we are used to. All of that requires the natural resources and energy.
There are some opportunities also within North America with what we are seeing in terms of long-term trends, demographic growth, and economic growth, but to a lesser extent. When we looked at that, we looked at four key sectors: forest products, agri-foods, mining, and energy. Each has important opportunities, but also major challenges.
I'll just briefly say a few words on each one.
The major challenge in forest products is maintaining global competitiveness. Our plants, particularly pulp and paper plants, are small and old compared to those elsewhere in the world. Some competitors didn't previously exist, such as Brazil, Chile and New Zealand. All that puts a lot of pressure on our Canadian producers. They're also dealing with costs that are growing faster that those of other countries. The strategy is therefore to renew the forest sector.
The biggest challenge in the agricultural sector is opening global markets. My colleague Glen mentioned that our tariff barriers were high. The Doha Round is not progressing. If we want opportunities in the agricultural sector, we really must have an aggressive strategy for liberalizing agricultural trade. We also have to raise the innovation level in our agricultural sector.
When we turn to mining, one critical thing is that there are great opportunities, but our reserves are declining. We need to boost our exploration activity to an extent that we have never seen before so that we can open new mines. There are a number of things we recommend to bring that forward. On the energy side, we have vast energy resources. The greatest challenges that we are seeing have to do with the environment, and dealing with those environmental issues.
What we are suggesting is that there is an opportunity for Canada to basically become a clean energy superpower. I emphasize the word “clean”, which means a dual strategy of developing that resource, but also developing environmental technologies.
That's basically in terms of the four sectors. There are two common themes that come out of it. One has to do with labour shortages. When we look at these resource sectors, the workforce on average is older than what we are seeing in other sectors. The shortage that Glen alluded to is coming faster than what we are seeing in other sectors, and we are already seeing it on the energy side.
The second major theme that crosses everything in terms of all the resource sectors has to do with the regulatory complexity, the hurdles these companies have to go through to get projects approved, and at a time when we have a boom that will not last forever. We're seeing this boom that will exist for maybe 10, 15, 20 years. Then it's certainly going to slow down, if not decline.
We are looking at that opportunity, which is not only a time-limited offer, but it is an offer that we won't see repeated for generations to come, looking at trends and demographics that we are seeing worldwide. This is a short-term opportunity where we can benefit, and we have to meet the challenges that we have identified in our volume.