Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.
As Ken just noted, we cannot lose sight of the importance of participating in international trade and investment, and we can't lose sight of the fact that we are a trading nation.
You heard Ken mention how the global commerce strategy continues to position Canada assertively in traditional markets like the U.S. and emerging giants like India and China. He also mentioned how our main competition is from national governments, who are fully engaged in defining their national brands as an incalculable boost to their economies. Think of Ireland over the previous 15 years, Australia, and even the United States and Germany. Unquestioned economic powerhouses have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into national branding campaigns.
The GCS gives us tools to compete, and we are doing so on the investment attraction, promotion, and retention front. The facts are indisputable: investment is a huge generator of wealth for Canada. It's also a huge source of R and D investment, a point I will get into a little further along.
In addition to our national efforts, we must also leverage signature and prestige events. We have an international marketing effort now to support the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. It's called “2010 reasons to do business in Canada”. Against the backdrop of our current economic environment, we have to be aggressive in showing Canada's strengths regardless of the times, particularly when the world will be focusing on Vancouver.
Another critical driver for wealth is innovation. Research and development in science and technology add wealth and diversity to our economic base. In fact, the Canadian headquarters of foreign multinationals, the large pharmaceuticals, for example, invest more in R and D in Canada than Canadian firms do. We have the highest level of public funding for R and D in the world, but rank out of the top 15 in taking ideas to market and building the companies of tomorrow. This is an area where our network is ideally placed to change that performance.
Ken mentioned our S and T agreements. Here is an example of why they are a good return on our investment and an important economic driver. This summer we established joint initiatives under existing agreements with India and China. The response to our calls to proposal was very well received, with 135 expressions of interest for projects in China. Through the selection process we ended up with a total of eight fully funded projects. We contributed $2.2 million through our international science and technology partnership program, which in turn leveraged an additional $9.2 million from domestic and international partners. Our efforts in India were just as successful. From 67 expressions of interest we awarded funding for eight projects. Our contribution was $2.2 million, which leveraged an additional $15.2 million from our domestic and international partners. The results of these initiatives will be market-ready, science-based technologies and projects. These types of arrangements continue to move Canada along a path toward a more innovative and productive economy.
Engaging research groups, businesses, or public sector partners is part of our unique offering to Canadian business. It's also why we have adapted our own business model to meet the integrative trade realities faced by our companies on a daily basis.
We are harnessing our network of 140 global contact points to better demonstrate our value-added to Canadian business. The network has evolved from helping companies to sell their products abroad to linking businesses into research groups, helping transfer or procure technologies, helping businesses to sell their technologies, securing investment or financing, or encouraging our companies to invest in good opportunities abroad. We also rebranded the Trade Commissioner Service to better promote our value-added in saving a company time and money when doing business in foreign markets.
We would be marketing the service aggressively and taking full advantage of all the traditional and non-traditional media at our disposal, like the Web 2.0. All this will ensure that once economic stability returns, we'll have positioned Canadian companies to take advantage of global opportunities.
Meanwhile, over the short term we are tasking our regional offices and posts to ensure clients are aware of the broad suite of government services and programs available in addition to our marketing program. We have moved aggressively to work even closer with our partners in the international trade portfolio, EDC and CCC, and we're working more closely on a daily basis with BDC. In fact, we have people in four BDC offices across the country.
Budget 2009 has increased the capacity and flexibility of EDC to ensure Canadian businesses have access to adequate financing as well as to maintain trade and investment during the global economic downturn. This means EDC has an additional $350 million in capital to support up to $1.5 billion in increased credit capacity to help address emerging stresses and financial gaps in Canada’s export sector.
All told, the GCS, our changed business model, our marketing efforts, and increasing trade portfolio integration have put us on a footing to help Canadian businesses now and well into the future. But this will require constant monitoring, evaluation, reallocation, and reinvestment to ensure full value for Canadians' money.
Thank you very much.