That's right. I heard that and I hope we can get into a discussion about that.
I have a bit of a vested interest in the global markets action plan as a member of the advisory council advising the minister. I do think it's a good plan. I think the minister and officials in the department and other agencies all deserve a lot of credit for putting this together, because it's the first plan we've had in a long time that tries to prioritize government trade policy, government trade services, and tries to align across government.
As you discussed, the success of the plan is going to be seen in the results at the end of the day, and that's clear. I look forward to discussing with you what I see happening in Canadian business. I'd be very pleased to speak about the specifics of the plan itself, but I wanted to make a few very general observations at the beginning.
From an economic point of view the first is the strategic importance of exports and of international business for Canadian companies. I think coming out of the recession between 2002 and 2012 we saw 23,000 manufacturing operations close down in this country and out of that probably about 20,000 exporters disappeared. Most of that took place before the recession, and it was largely driven by the very rapid and volatile appreciation of the Canadian dollar, so we have a lot of rebuilding to do.
Now, as we're in recovery mode, export sales and manufacturing sales have recovered to pre-recession levels, but what has become very clear for the Canadian economy as a whole is that our economic recovery depends on business investment and on exports. Canadian consumers are pretty much maxed out as are governments, so from focusing on where the key levers of economic growth are the export side business investment is crucial. I see them tied together, but it's also crucial to prioritize where government is putting its investments and where it can make the biggest impact on international business development; and that was a part of the thinking behind the GMAP.
It was to identify the priority markets for business, and there was a lot of consultation with the business community along those lines. It recognizes—and I think previous witnesses spoke to this as well—that international business is not just about exports and imports, it's about investment and intellectual property and the movement of people, which is more and more important today. It's about being able to meet standards and about being able to enter into procurement markets and provide services, which is becoming more and more important as well for any company that's trying to find new customers. That was very important, because in the recession 30% of our exports disappeared in a matter of six months, between October of 2008 and March of 2009.
In looking at how we rebuild our export base, how we respond to the new reality of international business, I think this action plan goes a long way and does a good job in prioritizing markets, and not only from the point of view of what markets are growing. You do need a different plan. Businesses need a different plan and governments need a different response in our developed markets, like the United States, versus those new markets that are emerging or in particular market segments where we don't have a general interest but maybe, as in the area of energy in the Middle East or procurement projects and infrastructure projects in Africa, where there are specific business interests that are not general. I think the plan does a good job in prioritizing that.
The third thing that is really important, apart from responding to the changing nature of business, business needs, and trying to put priorities around this, is the alignment that the action plan rolls out for agencies, for trade policy, for foreign policy, and for development policy behind the economic diplomacy that it talks about, but also the alignment of trade services and of business development services that are being provided by agencies like EDC, or CCC, or the trade commissioner service, right across the government. I think that's important.
There are two other things. In any good strategy, of course, you need metrics. You need objectives and you need metrics and you need to continually judge the success of the implementation of the strategy against the reality of whether this is working or not. It does provide that. There are metrics in here, and it also provides an adjustment strategy. We talked a little bit before about further iterations of this, but what it really does is it provides a response mechanism through better consultation with business to adjust priorities.
I guess I see three areas where I think we should go further. The first is in the area of investment. Over half of our trade is carried out within companies; it's intra-corporate investment. It's BlackBerry selling to BlackBerry, and Bombardier selling to Bombardier, and Ford selling to Ford. So that investment to secure anchor investments is crucial in the Canadian economy, and our ability to access those investments through supply chains is—in some cases—an even better way of accessing international markets than a direct export approach.
I was reminded of this. I made a visit to Hong Kong with an extremely innovative water technology company. They thought they would be able to sell this technology to clean up the harbour by Kai Tak Airport. We were told by the Hong Kong government—very politely—“Great technology, but it would be better for you to work with an engineering company in Canada, partner with them, because we don't buy technologies; we buy engineering solutions”.
So there are better ways, I think, that need to be.... John Curtis spoke before about how we can develop capacity within Canada to build supply chain relations internationally. I think capacity building is very important. If you're going to go to new customers, you need new products, you have to meet new standards, and you have to develop new products. Innovation plays a key role in that, as well as new skills.
Another way I think we can do a better job is in the effective enforcement of our trade rules. It's great to be able to negotiate new market opportunities—that's super—but we have to make sure that our trading partners actually abide by the rules, so an effective mechanism for effective enforcement of trade rules is especially important.
I can talk a little bit more about what CME is doing. The market plan has helped us align our priorities and our investments to help our members and work with, not only government agencies but other industry and trade associations, like Importers Exporters Canada. Here it's helped us set priorities, and we're working very closely with our partners. I'd be glad to talk about that a little bit later.
Thank you.