Minister Ng highlights funding support for Canadian exporters

News release

November 5, 2021 - Vancouver, British Columbia - Global Affairs Canada

As Canadian businesses look to recover and rebuild, they need support to help them adapt to shifts in the global marketplace and innovate for growth abroad.

Yesterday, the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, visited Vancouver-based Ionomr Innovations Inc., to highlight how Canadian businesses continue to grow abroad successfully with the support of the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) and the TCS’s CanExport small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) program.

While visiting Ionomr, a technology company that specializes in groundbreaking ion-exchange membrane and polymers for cleantech applications, Minister Ng announced that, since the start of the 2020 to 2021 fiscal year, more than $9 million in CanExport SMEs funding has been approved for British Columbia businesses. This funding will help SMEs explore new opportunities to sell their products and services outside Canada. Across Canada, more than $198.5 million in CanExport funding has been approved since the program’s launch in 2016.

During her British Columbia trip, Minister Ng also highlighted that applications for the CanExport SMEs program will reopen in January 2022 and encouraged small business owners and entrepreneurs to apply.

Quotes

“Ionomr is just 1 great example of Canada’s innovative small businesses, which are looking to change the game by bringing their products and services abroad. Through the CanExport SMEs program, our government is helping Canadian businesses start up, scale up, and bring their ideas to global markets. Programs like CanExport SMEs will continue to be crucial as we strive for a cleaner and more inclusive recovery with Canada leading the way.”

- Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development

Quick facts

  • The TCS helps Canadian businesses grow with its funding and support programs and by connecting them to international opportunities and the TCS network of trade commissioners in more than 160 cities worldwide.

  • Since its inception in 2016, the CanExport program has supported over 9,000 projects in more than 151 markets.

  • CanExport is composed of 4 streams of funding:

    ·         CanExport SMEs

    ·         CanExport Innovation

    ·         CanExport Associations

    ·         CanExport Community Investments

  • Through CanExport SMEs, Canadian SMEs may access up to $50,000 in funding to help them export to new international markets.

  • In 2018, the government announced investments of $150 million over 6 years to help Canadian businesses export and grow and to strengthen the TCS and enhance the support it provides to Canadian exporters.

Associated links

Contacts

Alice Hansen
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development
613-612-0482
Alice.Hansen@international.gc.ca

Media Relations Office
Global Affairs Canada
media@international.gc.ca
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