Thank you, Madam Chair
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing and providing valuable testimony for our study.
The government's Africa trade policy document released last year estimates that Canada's merchandise trade with all African countries was about $15 billion, which, of course, is a rounding error when it comes to Canada's overall merchandise trade with the world and with the United States, our largest trading partner.
What, in your view, would be a base case and then an upper limit of where that number could go in the next five years? I'm looking to understand the scope of the benefit Canada could receive by expending resources or effort in expanding trade with Africa.
I'll ask each of the witnesses to respond, starting with Mr. Fadili.