Good morning.
Welcome to our province, and thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee to share our position regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP.
Let me first make some quick remarks regarding the association—who we are, what we do—and then provide some additional brief remarks with respect to the TPP.
In short, we're an industry trade association and we represent seafood producers, both small and large, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Our membership includes mostly family-owned companies and some harvester-owned as well.
ASP's members produce the vast majority of the province's seafood by value and by volume, ranging from 90% of the province's inshore shrimp production and 80% plus of the snow crab—those two represent most of the value in the industry—and a large majority of pelagics, such as capelin, mackerel, herring, and varying percentages of groundfish. ASP is also the client for several fisheries holding the Marine Stewardship Council, or MSC, label, a third-party, independent, eco-certification. We certified the first fishery in Canada, the first on the eastern seaboard of the continent, and the largest cold-water shrimp fishery in the world.
Achieving MSC certification is an important element in maintaining market access. I call it the democracy of the marketplace, assuring consumers who want to buy from sustainable fisheries that the fish from Newfoundland and Labrador are sustainable. We now hold four certificates for shrimp in the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as snow crab in the province. I raise it here because I think it is a trade issue and is of interest to you.
I've appeared more often before trade committees of the House than I have before fisheries committees. I like that, because we are a trading industry. It is 80% to 90% of all Newfoundland and Labrador production that is exported. It's a considerable figure.
Since ASP's founding in 2004, a rough estimate would place our industry exports at $10 billion. That is a significant contribution to our economy, to the region, through transportation linkages, and to the country as a whole. While some are quick to say that we lost the fishery in the 1990s, which we did with the moratorium, and while it is true that the fishery's overall contribution to provincial GDP has declined in relation to the overall growth in the economy, the value of the fishery has more than doubled from what it was in the groundfish days with the rise of shellfish. It remains the largest private sector employer in the province. Just last year, I'm pleased to say, it reached its highest ever historical production value, of $1.2 billion.
As a trading industry—this is the reason we're here today—we support the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This trade agreement, with reduced tariffs, can mean more exports to the participating countries. There's room to grow. The issue is not just what is sold now, but what that could be in the future.
As I said in a press release when the deal was announced, we're an export industry, pure and simple. Eliminating tariffs and ensuring fair market access is imperative for us. While we're pleased to sell in our home province and across the country, the reality is that 80% to 90% of Newfoundland and Labrador's seafood will be sold in international markets. Thus it ever was and ever shall be. That was the reason we were settled in the first place. Cod, in our case, was a proxy for the European stock market. It's quite amazing.
We have hundreds of years of experience in exporting, and that will always be the case. While other business sectors might be engaging consultants or attending seminars in light of the TPP or CETA or the South Korea deal, figuring out how to enter those markets, Newfoundland seafood producers, like Martin, are doing what we've always done: selling internationally, exporting the world over.
Very importantly in this instance, the countries in TPP represent a significant and growing proportion of the world's key markets for seafood, both established and new markets. As you will know, the tariffs on seafood in the countries represented in the TPP have been quite high, in some instances as high as 34%.
If you think about any business and what margins might be required to make that business sustainable, and then think about those kinds of tariff rates, well, essentially we're prevented from selling and we prevent consumers from accessing quality fish. These kinds of tariffs thwart market access. They limit where we can sell.
Another point I made in May, when I testified before this committee via telephone, is worth repeating. Reducing tariffs is not really only about the straight math calculation of what happens in those given markets in the TPP countries. When tariffs change in a given market, or several markets, as represented by this deal, the trade flows can be impacted in other countries outside of the TPP. It might mean additional returns from existing markets that now have new competitors, even though the trade flows might not change.
In closing, let me simply say that we support the TPP. We support reduced trade barriers. We support better market access. We think it makes everyone winners.
Again, I want to thank the committee for the invitation to appear, and I'm available for any questions you might have.
Thank you.