Right now, the EDC has offices in Mexico and Brazil. From Brazil they cover the Southern Cone. They cover Chile, Argentina, and Peru as well. Mexico is busy on its own. We know that EDC has been very tentative in the past in opening offices abroad, but they are becoming more aggressive. We know that they are open in China and in Russia as well. Obviously they have seen the benefits of having a representative locally.
The office in Brazil has been a very successful office, as they have been able to develop some new programs. So they have been working a lot on some lending in domestic currency in order to support Canadian transactions. That has always been an issue of importance, taking foreign debt in countries where currency has stiff variations and could expose them to foreign exchange rates that they are not very keen on. Being able to offer some domestic currency facilities for the importers would put EDC at the forefront of many other ECAs worldwide. The Brazil office has been very successful. But I think they had to focus more on the next level down, on medium and small exporters.
I had the opportunity about four years ago and three years ago to do some cross-country presentations, together with EDC and the Canadian and Brazilian ambassadors, to try to open eyes about Brazilian opportunities. We did five cities in eight days, and I was quite surprised by the amount of interest in Brazil among a lot of small companies, both in services and in products. And we discovered that some of those small companies already had relationships with Brazil that had gone right under the radar screen. Many of us were not aware that they were already trading with and dealing with Brazil, both in services and in products. There is probably more than meets the eye. I think these programs will help expand those relationships.