As you are aware member countries of the World Trade Organization, the WTO, are entitled to take steps to protect some industries, such as the furniture sector, which is another industry starting to lose jobs. Just recently there was talk of 5,000 jobs being lost.
A number of measures need to be instituted, but in addition to this, the current government needs to, as you said, develop programs to help our companies adapt to the new competitive environment in the area of manufacturing, design, and innovation. That's crucial.
You also raised the issue of supply and management. That bothers me, and I'll tell you why. I was in Washington last week with one of the members of a delegation. It became clear that the Farm Bill was in the process of being renegotiated. The Americans are investing heavily in corn, grain, etc. And they're not about to stop doing this. This makes the competition even fiercer from our point of view. I spoke with farmers. Despite being heavily subsidized they told us they need even more support. We have a small, fragile sector and our supply management does not equate to a subsidy system, as you know full well. It's a quota system. You are familiar with it and you said we need to forget about it, that we need to get rid of it.
We're losing between 25,000 and 30,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. Supply management in my opinion applies to small traditional farms. You referred to this last time. I'm telling you that traditional farms may disappear. I don't agree with that and I think that they need to be kept alive, and that we need to keep our supply management system because even the Americans are protected. They are protected, we know this. You have to protect some sectors.