If I could go to the point both of you have touched upon now, the importance of services, I think we are at an inflection point in Asian economies where growth is going to be driven increasingly not by investment and by exports but by domestic consumption. Economies such as China will be restructuring so that they provide not just higher GDP growth but a better quality of life for their citizens. The way they do that is by increasing the share of income that goes to consumers rather than to corporations and by developing what you might call quality of life services and products in the economies, particularly in urban centres.
Hence, growth is going to come increasingly from the services sector, and this is an area in which Canada, on the face of it, has a lot of expertise. However, we have not in the past paid much attention to services exports. We've really been very fortunate to ride on the back of a commodities supercycle, exporting raw materials to Asia on high prices that have benefited this country very greatly. We are now at the end of the commodities supercycle. As Asia transitions to an economy that is driven more by domestic demand and by services, we will need a different way of succeeding in Asia. To sell services in Asia is not simply about putting something in a container and shipping it over. It's about understanding the market, understanding political, social, and cultural institutions. It's about being on the ground.
That's why I think the single biggest challenge for Canada is not necessarily negotiating more free trade agreements or sending more trade missions or making grandiose statements. It's about equipping Canadians with the skills, the knowledge, and the aspiration to be successful in Asia so they can get the job done. Putting stuff in a container and shipping it over is not going to be enough anymore. Asia wants much more sophisticated products and services, and we need to step up to that challenge.