—for Japan. We think we have a great opportunity there.
There are tree fruits and berries that British Columbia exports, but there are concerns and barriers in Japan that there might be the presence of a pathogen on the fruit, the codling moth, despite the fact that the moth is not known to attack these species. These are things like Canadian apples and cherries. We believe there would be a very important market for B.C. exports of apples and cherries.
On the forest products side, there are tariff barriers. We believe, for example, that our exports of lumber or manufactured wood products absolutely could increase for B.C. if some of those tariffs and non-tariff barriers were reduced. One of the things B.C. has done over the last two years since the tsunami is donated wood products and funds to construct facilities for schools and health care centres in the tsunami region in northern Japan. We've been trading forest products with Japan since the 1940s or 1950s, so we have had a good relationship. We believe there's a huge opportunity for B.C. and Canadian lumber and manufactured wood products in the post-tsunami building phase.
Japan just also introduced a wood first act, something which British Columbia did a couple of years ago. It is a statement of intent through law to utilize wood products in the construction of buildings. Certainly historically in Japan wood was used extensively, but in this last century, concrete and steel have taken over a lot of wood. They've just passed a wood first act that commits them to utilizing a far greater amount of wood products. We'd certainly like those to be Canadian wood products instead of Chinese wood products, or New Zealand or Australian wood products, or for that matter, United States wood products. We believe there are opportunities to increase exports for a number of products.
We also believe on the services side that there are huge opportunities in British Columbia. For example, in the technology sector, the international education sector, and the tourism sector, we have an opportunity to increase the services flow in the provision of services from British Columbia into Japan. There's certainly an interest in that market in what we have to offer, but there are barriers that prevent us from realizing the extent of those opportunities, which we would like to see eliminated through an agreement.