Government Partnership Looks To Promote Canadian Clean Tech Firms Abroad

By: Talha Bhatti  |   October 15th, 2012   |   Business, News, O Canada

Canada has aspirations of becoming a world leader in the clean tech sector and the government is playing its part to promote Canadian firms around the world. The federal government of Ottawa is looking to get a larger piece of the renewable energy and energy efficiency market by supporting companies that are moving towards commercializing their products. The Canadian government’s agencies that deal in the promotion of exports and sustainable technology are actively identifying companies that they will work with to meet their export goals.

 

Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is at the forefront of this effort and provides early-stage financing to startups to help get their clean technologies ready for world markets. SDTC has given $560-million to 228 projects locally and its efforts have paid off well with partner firms reaching $2-billion in total value. To make its efforts even more valuable, SDTC is partnering with Export Development Canada (EDC), which is a government credit agency. The two government bodies will works together to offer clean tech exporters insurance, underwriting of performance bonds and equity.

 

Vicky Sharpe is the president of SDTC and spoke about her organizations efforts by stating that, “This is a further concrete step forward to show that Canada’s wealth of clean-tech companies have progressed from what were very early stage opportunities to what are now real in-market businesses.”

 

President of EDC, Stephen Poloz, also spoke about the matter and said, “Clean-tech companies need to scale up and go global, which provides a natural fit for EDC and SDTC to work together to help put Canadians companies at the forefront of the industry.”

 

Current data shows that Canada’s clean-tech sector has secure $9-billion of business in 2010. This is only 0.9 per cent of the $1-trillion global clean-tech market which any believe will grow to $3-trillion by 2020. SDTC and EDC want Canada to claim a 2 per cent stake in the sector and help generate revenues of $60-billion and create 126,000 jobs.

 

Sharpe says that, “If we can get there, it would mean massive economic benefit to the country and we think the SDTC-EDC team is going to be an important delivery mechanism for that increased market share. But we have to move quickly to ensure we receive our share.”

 

Potential markets in Africa, Asia and South America are massive because these growing economies are looking to industrialize without falling into some of the same environmental traps that other countries have faced. If Canada is quick enough it can claim a foothold in the sector that will help the economy in the future.

Source: The Globe and Mail