Impact of Canadian Diplomatic Trade Offices Abroad

C D Howe study (early 2014) on the effect of trade offices -- announcement.

Report (pdf) is here.

Overview

With the federal government having prioritized “economic diplomacy” for overseas posts, along with a major budget consolidation, it is essential that Ottawa get the process right.

This E-Brief assesses the impact of Canada’s diplomatic representation abroad on exports. It concludes that economic diplomacy boosts exports – and quite significantly – and sheds light on the questions of where, why and how.

The main policy findings are that maintaining high-level diplomatic relations, through an embassy, has of itself a larger positive impact on exports than the deepening of relations via additional posts, and that the existence of a trade agreement with a destination market has a significant positive influence on Canadian exports to that market. The results suggest that there is a definite importance in the “G2G” (government-to-government) relationship as distinct from the role of government in providing “B2B” (business-to-business) trade facilitation.