SINT Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

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1550

The Chair (Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.))

Mr. Charles Barrett (Vice-President, Business Research, Conference Board of Canada)

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1555

The Chair

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Canadian Alliance)

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1600

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

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1605

Mr. David MacDuff (Special Advisor/Senior Writer, Conference Board of Canada)

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

Mr. Mark Eyking (Sydney—Victoria, Lib.)

Mr. Charles Barrett

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1610

Mr. Mark Eyking

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

Mr. Mark Eyking

The Chair

Mr. Mark Eyking

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)

Mr. Charles Barrett

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Mr. Raymond Simard

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. Raymond Simard

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. Raymond Simard

Mr. Charles Barrett

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1620

Mr. Raymond Simard

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

Mr. David MacDuff

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

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1625

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. John Duncan

Mr. Charles Barrett

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1630

The Chair

Mr. Mark Eyking

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. Mark Eyking

Mr. Charles Barrett

Mr. Mark Eyking

Mr. Charles Barrett

The Chair

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CANADA

Subcommittee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

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NUMBER 009

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.)): Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are doing an examination in view of strengthening economic relations between Canada and Asia.

    We have with us Mr. Charles Barrett and David MacDuff from the Conference Board of Canada.

    I want to welcome both of you. We will start with a brief presentation, and then we'll open up the floor for some questions and answers.

    Mr. Barrett.

    Mr. Charles Barrett (Vice-President, Business Research, Conference Board of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We're delighted to be here. We have prepared a written submission that I think has been circulated to the committee. I won't read it, but I'll maybe walk you through a few highlights.

    First, as I think you all know, the Conference Board is a private, not-for-profit, policy research institute. So although we are membership-based we are really not in the business of advocacy on behalf of our members, but rather advocacy of good debate on public policy issues. We certainly have an interest in and some familiarity with Asia. We've done work there for some 20 years. I also have a personal interest in it that goes back an earlier incarnation, before I joined the Conference Board, as an academic economist.

    If you were so inclined, you would see some links between the submission we prepared for this committee's work and one of the background papers we prepared in conjunction with our overall submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs for their dialogue on foreign policy--a paper on Canada's relations with the rest of the world. There are some common themes in that paper and in this one that we want to underscore.

    I want to begin, as outlined on pages 3 and 4, by making the point--and this is a bit of pet peeve of mine--that it is really important, in talking about our business linkages outside of North America, to understand that there are fundamental differences between our role as one part of an increasingly integrated North American economy, and our relations with the rest of the world.

    While it's quite natural that people like to add things up to 100% and kind of talk about shares of the pie, and so on, it's really important to bear in mind they're not trade-offs; they're different orders of relations and quite fundamentally different. We try to make that point. We would be happy to chat about that further.

    Clearly, because of NAFTA and more recent events since September 11, North America and our relationship with the U.S. is a priority for Canada and must be because we are first and foremost a North American economy. But we make the point here quite explicitly that the rest of the world is important for Canada, and that certainly is the case for Asia-Pacific.

    In the case of Asia-Pacific, for the old Asia hands since 1997 it's been a little bit of an uphill battle because the Asian economies went through quite a difficult adjustment in light of the financial crisis, and of course Japan has been in a longer term structural adjustment. But the region is indeed coming out of that, and as it is coming out a new confidence is emerging about Asia focused on Asia. We make reference to the ASEAN+3 initiative. Of course, I think people well understand the growing intraregional trade that is taking place inside of Asia.

    We make some comments on the three major partners of Canada in Asia--Japan, China, and India. With Japan we have a mature relationship. It is coloured by the structural issues Japan finds itself in. With China we have an exciting relationship that is growing and is likely to continue to grow. The Indian relationship is just getting going again, following a bit of a hiatus in the 1990s. I am personally of the view that the Canada-India relationship has a lot of nostalgia attached to it, and we need to get beyond that.

    Then we also make the point that, at least implicitly, the officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs seem to be downgrading Southeast Asia, which may or may not be appropriate.

    We have some comments on the SARS development, including some numbers on economic impact in Canada and in Asia. The point we are making there is that while it is certainly a short-term development, it needs to be put in its proper context.

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    So looking forward, does Asia matter for Canada? Yes, because of the almost cliché of the 80s and 90s that Asia is the most dynamic region in the world. While it was under some strain in the late 1990s, indeed that's the case. At this time the Asian economy collectively is outperforming other areas in the world, and moving forward, that will continue to be the case.

    The relationship this country has with Asia is multifaceted. We touch on migration. We touch on business development strategies, including the need for greater focus, which DFAIT has acknowledged. We touch on the development cooperation relationship, with which we have some personal familiarity at the Conference Board.

    We can point out that while Asia is the most dynamic part of the world economy, it also has more poor than any other part of the world economy. There are both challenges and opportunities in Asia related to the integration of Asian economies into the global economy. We tend to believe that development cooperation and trade liberalization go hand in hand.

    We touch on branding, which I think has been the subject of discussion around this committee, and we would be happy to chat about that further.

    Then we conclude our paper with a little bit of a discussion about the changing nature of private sector institutions promoting trans-Pacific trade, particularly bilateral business councils. As I think has already been pointed out to this committee, they are going through some difficult times.

    The Canada China Business Council is strong, but there are others for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan that are having some difficulties. I know that is a concern of the officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs. I guess it is our sense that there is a need to think about new models of private sector promotion of business linkages.

    That's just a very quick tour of what's in the paper. We'd be happy to chat about that or anything else on your minds. Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Now we will open the floor for questions.

    Mr. Duncan.

    Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much.

    I see from your document that you managed several CIDA capacity development projects, including in China. Our CIDA resources are in many views spread pretty thin. I'm curious about setting a priority where we would actually be allocating CIDA funding in a country where we have a significant and growing trade deficit. That is a poor correlation. In other words, if a country is developed to the point where we're actually in a trade deficit, why would we continue to prioritize that as an area requiring CIDA funding?

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    Mr. Charles Barrett: Thank you.

    That's a good question. I think we could talk for some time about Canada's development strategy. You pointed out that CIDA is spread quite thinly. It is, and I think that's widely understood. One could debate the reasons for that, and they would go around the fact that Canada has relations in many parts of the world.

    But on the specific point of China, Canada has had a development cooperation program in China since very shortly after the reform process started in 1982, I believe, and it's gone through several stages. My sense is that it has been quite a successful program. Bear in mind that China is a big country but it's still a very poor country. While there has been absolutely tremendous progress made in integration of the coastal regions into the world economy, there are many parts of China that are not nearly as developed. So without question, the case can be made for China to continue to be an ODA recipient.

    On the question of the trade deficit, putting on my economist hat I'm not so much bothered by surplus or deficits, because in a multilateral world you trade with different partners. That's why you have a market instead of having bilateral negotiations and bartering with everyone.

    Mr. John Duncan: I didn't mean to suggest it was a bad arrangement. I'm just saying it's a measure of the relative health of China as compared to another country.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: At some point countries have to graduate; that's absolutely the case. But my sense is China has a way to go before it graduates.

    Mr. John Duncan: I want to ask you about Asia-Pacific free trade agreements, because Canada has certainly displayed a distinct lack of interest in any free trade arrangement in that area. The singular exception of Singapore is basically at their insistence.

    We heard from some senior business leaders, who are also acting in the capacity of advising the Prime Minister in Japan, that they're very interested in a free trade arrangement with Canada that would exclude agriculture--which addresses your point.

    Do you think it would be discretionary to enter into an agreement that avoided agriculture?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: I think the possibility of an agreement with Japan has some interest on this side of the world, including in the Canadian business community. The nature of any free trade agreement is you need to begin by looking at how much scope there is to do a deal.

    Agriculture is a stumbling block for the world trading system on several fronts--bilaterally, plurilaterally, and multilaterally. We're going to try to have a go at it in Doha, but we've had seven or eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations in which we haven't even been able to touch agriculture. Agriculture is important to Japan. Could there be enough benefit on both sides to do a deal excluding agriculture? Perhaps, but you'd really have to take a close look at that.

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    Mr. David MacDuff (Special Advisor/Senior Writer, Conference Board of Canada): There has been some discussion in some Canadian organizations about this very idea. The CCCE, when it was called the BCNI, raised the idea of a Canada-Japan free trade agreement. I know that the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, which is based in Vancouver, has proposed the idea of a kind of new age partnership--perhaps a “free trade minus”--that would involve closer cooperation in fields like science and technology.

    So that's an alternative route. If you didn't want to go the full free trade route, you might consider different alternatives or different areas of cooperation that would enhance bilateral relations in that regard.

    Mr. John Duncan: When we were in Thailand, we heard that CESO had been scrubbed for Thailand a couple of years ago. There was great concern with this because some of our trading relations with Thailand are based on relational experiences that developed as a consequence of the CESO program.

    This would appear to confirm your statement that DFAIT has downgraded Southeast Asia in their set of priorities, because we know that CESO programs are run in other parts of the world that don't seem to be as strategically important.

    Do you have anything to add that would further explain what you mean when you say Southeast Asia has been implicitly downgraded in DFAIT's priorities?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: You're talking about CESO programs, are you?

    Mr. John Duncan: I'm talking about the Canadian Executive Services Overseas. Sorry.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: I'm not clear whether the CESO program is funded through DFAIT, because CESO's an NGO, and I thought if their funding was private--

    Mr. John Duncan: I believe their funding is federal, so they do tend to work in tandem.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: Okay. I don't know the specifics there, I'm afraid.

    As to the implicit downgrading of Southeast Asia, DFAIT is quite explicit in terms of its priorities in Asia-Pacific, and they are Japan, China, and India. So ASEAN is not on the list.

    In terms of private sector initiatives, at one time the Canadian Chamber of Commerce had a kind of ASEAN business council, but I believe that's defunct. A colleague of mine from the Conference Board was in Singapore earlier this year, and certainly had the impression that the Canadian business community feels far away from Canada, and not terribly on the radar screen. I think the links simply are not as intense as they are with east Asia, and particularly with China.

    Having said that, of course there is Canadian presence there. There are life insurance companies; Canada Steamship Lines; and Inco has a big joint venture in Indonesia. So there is certainly a Canadian business presence there.

    The Chair: Mr. Eyking.

    Mr. Mark Eyking (Sydney—Victoria, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The way I see it, the China-North America relationship is not going to get any better with this trade imbalance increasing all the time. In order to turn that around I guess a couple of things could happen. One is trade barriers, or us producing products cheaper, which probably isn't going to happen.

    On my first question, what products can we sell more of to them, so we can create more jobs in our area?

    Second, my understanding is China trades with the U.S. dollar. If it had its own floating currency, would that be worse for our trade relationship?

    Third, does Europe have the same problem with this trade imbalance with China, and what is it doing?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: There are certainly--and I think the committee has heard this--members of the Canadian business community who are very conscious of the extreme competitiveness of China. There are also members of the Mexican business community who are quite frightened about the competitiveness of China. There has been a real divergence of low-end manufacturing away from the maquiladoras in Mexico to China.

    China has a pretty elastic supply of labour, and as China reforms its economy, releases labour from inefficient state-owned enterprises, and integrates into the world economy, their capacity to be the workshop of the world will increase.

    You began with a statement that our relations with China will get worse. I'm not sure whether you were thinking in economic or political security terms.

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    Mr. Mark Eyking: Especially when the trade balance gets worse.... We have this North American zone, and are we going to start thinking about the North American zone in dealing with them, instead of U.S. only and Canada?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: As China develops its capacity, the need for China to import will increase as well. It is certainly the case that plenty of people who have been there since 1979 find it takes a long time to make money in China. That's true, but if you talk to major multinationals on the ground in China, they're now starting to make some money, because China is getting to the point where there is some disposable income. Over time, as China exports, its need to import will increase.

    What does this mean for Canada, and what are the opportunities for Canada? I think there are tremendous opportunities around professional services in Canada--engineering services, architecture, management consulting, and education services. Not all high value-added activities have to be in the goods sector. It's really important that we remember that.

    The Chair: Mr. Simard.

    Mr. Mark Eyking: I asked a couple of other questions.

    The Chair: Sure, no problem.

    Mr. Mark Eyking: I asked whether Europe has the same problem, and then there was the currency question.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: The RMB is partially convertible; it's not fully convertible. It's more convertible than it was, but it is a long way from having no currency restrictions, even on the current account. I think the most optimistic scenario is that it'll be a few years yet, because a lot of financial reform will have to take place in Canada before the RMB is fully convertible.

    Over time, if the RMB gets to that point, as wages rise in China and the RMB is released from its rate to the U.S. dollar, you could see a re-evaluation of the RMB and some correction in the balance of payments. But I don't think that's a scenario for the short run.

    As for Europe, they absolutely have the same problems.

    The Chair: Raymond.

    Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): One comment we seem to get repeatedly in Asia from Canadians and Asians is that our Canadian companies trying to do business there go there very poorly prepared. At the same time, we're hearing from people at the embassies and DFAIT that we're doing a lot of things here in Canada to prepare them properly. Can you comment on that? Companies go there with high expectations and come back very disappointed, in a lot of cases.

    Is there something else we can do here? It seems to me there are a lot of things we have to do here locally before we send people out there.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: The fact that one has to be patient doing business in Asia is not a new point; it's been around a long time. Canadians who believe it's a transaction-based model of doing business where you go, show your catalogue, sign a contract, and that's it will be mistaken and disappointed. The people who are successful in Asia are ones who are willing to be very patient.

    I don't know what we can do here, other than make people aware of that. I was a little bit interested in your framing of the question “when we send people” because entrepreneurs have to make the decision to spend the $7,500 for the trans-Pacific flight. I know that the trade commissioner service in Industry Canada is aware of the export readiness issue. Certainly in my view it is not in anybody's interest to encourage a very small micro-enterprise to get on a plane and go to Asia on spec, because it's a hard market.

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    Mr. Raymond Simard: This is my second question. One of the things we're trying to develop is a strategy or policy for Asia-Pacific. When you visit India, Thailand, and Japan--in that order--and look at the different levels of development, you find that one strategy is very difficult; it's almost impossible actually, because they all have different.... Certain industries that work in one country may not work in the other. How do you see that evolving? Could you have one strategy with different focuses?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: I take your point. Asia-Pacific is very heterogeneous; it's very diverse. It's diverse culturally and in levels of development, even within individual countries. China is not one country. Hong Kong and the Pearl River delta are very different and have light industry. Shanghai and the Yangtze River basin have heavy industry. If you go inland you're dealing with a much less-developed part of the world.

    One needs to think perhaps of layers of strategy. I don't think that's uncommon because that happens in business. You need to have a global strategic framework, and that's not inconsistent with having different tactics for different countries. In fact, that's the way you have to do it.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: You noted in your presentation there was a lot of nostalgia with India. Could you explain that to me, please?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: Maybe this has stopped now, but not too many years ago the typical speech would start off by saying that Canada and India are both members of the Commonwealth; we've had cooperation since the Colombo Plan; we are both committed to parliamentary democracy, etc. All of that is true, but that sort of casts the relationship circa 1949, or whatever.

    India has changed an enormous amount, and its geopolitical interests and economic interests are different than they were many years ago. So I think we need to be realistic about the interests of both partners. It's fine to trade on good will, but one mustn't kid oneself. That's really the point I'm making.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: In some cases in Asia, I think we want these people to think of us as hewers of wood and drawers of water. In some cases it seems--and I'm speaking for myself here and not for the other members of the committee--when they talk about North America we are not there. As a matter of fact, some of their maps show North America and just the U.S. That is very disconcerting.

    Obviously we have a lot of work to do to increase our trade with Asia. Could you just comment on that?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: I think that's very true. It strikes me--and this is very much a personal view--that we Canadians also have to be realistic and honest with ourselves. Remember that our total population is less than the population of the state of California. We are a pretty vast country with a relatively small population.

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    Mr. Raymond Simard: But we're a G-7 country.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: We are--to our luck.

    In many parts of the world, when they think of North America they think of the United States. That's not surprising. It's just the way the world works, therefore I think we need to be smart in saying there are three economies in North America, and differentiate ourselves. I think we can do that.

    This is also perhaps picking on some clichés, but we're not a colonial power or the middle power. I think there's some trade we could do on that. We're a little smaller and a little nicer, but we understand the Americans.

    The Chair: Mr. MacDuff.

    Mr. David MacDuff: If I can just pick up on that point, I found it really interesting when you were talking about the map of North America, and the fact they might not know us as well. But I think we have to consider some of the resources we have in our country.

    I note that DFAIT press releases on India often say that one out of every 30 Canadians is of Indian origin. So the fact is we do have some very strong people-to-people linkages between the two countries. The question is, how do we leverage those linkages for greater Canadian prosperity, because as Charles pointed out, the old nostalgia really isn't helping us very much when our total trade with India is only about $2 billion right now.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: An interesting point about North American demographics--this is oversimplified, but it really has truth--is because of migration, Canada is becoming more Asian and the United States is becoming more Hispanic. Under the surface of the comments we were making about the challenges faced by the traditional bilateral business councils is a question that I think everybody's asking but nobody has fully answered. Can we harness the Asian communities in Canada for understanding or business linkages?

    I don't mean to be naive about that because just saying “yes” overlooks some things, but if you go into Markham, Surrey, or Richmond, you will find there are local business associations. So there are business linkages that take place within those communities at the micro level.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. John Duncan: Speaking of Canada becoming more Asian and the U.S. becoming more Hispanic, it appears that the very next free trade agreement that Japan will ink will be with Mexico. That should be a real wake-up call for Canada. I consider us to be an Asia-Pacific nation and I don't really put Mexico in that category, although I guess technically they may be also, but there's every reason why we should have that agreement first. What are your thoughts on that?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: I have a couple of points. First, I think Mexico would see itself as an Asia-Pacific nation. Second, there's a fairly longstanding history of linkages between Japan and Mexico, and there is certainly significant Japanese investment in the maquiladora.

    Third, Mexico developed a bilateral agreement with the European Union just on transatlantic relations, and Canadian issues there have been rebuffed for sort of similar reasons. Of course, it comes back to the fact agriculture is more of an issue perhaps with us than it is with Mexico. To date, Canada has been pretty adept at being able to play the bilateral regional card versus the multilateral card, and if the agriculture issue is going to get resolved it will get resolved through the WTO.

    Mr. John Duncan: Yes, I don't see a big downside to running bilaterals without solving the agricultural dispute, because that will be done multilaterally.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: That could well be right. That again comes back to the point of asking if there's enough there if you leave out agriculture.

    Mr. John Duncan: We need to send some signals, and I think the signals we've been sending to Asia have been almost non-existent in terms of our level of interest, because we haven't engaged in free trade and other discussions.

    I think you made a comment--maybe it's just me dredging it up. We know that the financial sector in Japan is pulling their economy down in many ways, and we've had the example of a major Japanese bank being taken over by a U.S. bank, with total restructuring and a turnaround.

    We are getting indications that China's possibly heading in the same direction, in terms of the financial sector. Do you think the financial sector in China is headed for a meltdown or a problem because of their sort of semi-convertible currency?

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    Mr. Charles Barrett: There's no question there are challenges in the Chinese financial sector, but to me the situation is quite different from Japan's.

    In Japan you have a country with very mature demographics, slow underlying capacity to grow, and high income. It is also a major net saver. The issue is with Japanese senior citizens--kind of where does their money go? So there's a sort of structural current account surplus. It's also a system that, because of its consensual policy-making, finds it difficult to deal quickly with trade.

    In China you have a dynamic economy that is in a much different stage of development. Productivity and output are rising quickly, and the financial sector has some stress because it made loans in the past--and I guess continues to make loans--to money-losing state enterprises.

    So in both cases you have financial sectors with weak balance sheets, but in the Japanese case you have a rich country with not much growth, and in the Chinese case you have a poorer country but with quite dynamic growth. So I'm not sure that the parallels are right there.

    Mr. John Duncan: If you look at personnel and resources and how they're allocated from DFAIT for our foreign service trade representatives--EU, U.S., Asia--Asia is certainly third on the list.

    Given the fact we have a bigger hill to climb linguistically and in other ways in Asia, do you think there's room for some real change there in prioritization of our resources, especially considering the pretty negative results we've been getting lately from the EU?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: First of all, that's a perennial source of discussion and internal debate in DFAIT, and I guess ever shall be. If one asked if there was a case for putting more business development resources into Asia, I would say yes.

    It's interesting you mention the tension with Europe, because the other competing demand right now, of course, is our presence in the United States. We have one-third of the posts of Mexico in the United States, although many of theirs are small. But it's not just Asia; it's looking at our representation south of the border. I think you can make a case that there's a real need for some presence there, for some trust-building and awareness-building.

    Mr. John Duncan: That's the not the focus of our study, but I agree with you.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: Right. But one would have to look quite selectively and make sure they're in the right economies.

    In one of our meetings I heard a quote from a well-known person in the international affairs area--actually a former minister of the Crown. She made the point at this meeting that she would rather put more posts in the U.S. than have a high commission in Bangladesh. Well, I don't know. Bangladesh happens to be a very large CIDA post and it's a very poor country. But I'm not sure...it's a big market for trade in the short run.

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    The Chair: Final question, Mr. Eyking.

    Mr. Mark Eyking: I have two questions. When you talk about trade imbalances or trade figures, do we include services in that?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: In principle we do, but I think it's well understood that service trade is much harder to measure than goods trade, so the possibility that we underestimate the trade services is a very real one.

    On some of the figures that are quoted, the 87% of Canadian exports going to the U.S. refers to merchandise trade. The figure's around 80% if you include goods and services. Interestingly, trade in services is much less dependent on the U.S. market than is merchandise trade.

    Mr. Mark Eyking: When these boats go from Vancouver back to Asia, what are they taking with them? All these containers are coming here, and it seems that we see stuff going out of Vancouver harbour in bulk.

    Mr. Charles Barrett: You see a lot of bulk trade going out of Vancouver harbour, that's right.

    Mr. Mark Eyking: Container ships are different ships. Do they just take all the empties back?

    Mr. Charles Barrett: You'd have to ask somebody in the shipping business for sure, but my guess is that some of them are going back empty.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Barrett and Mr. MacDuff. It was a most positive presentation.

    If on reflection there are some other specific suggestions you would like to bring to the attention of the committee that we can recommend to the government in order to improve on trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region, that would be most helpful. If you hear of anybody who might have some ideas or specific suggestions, also please inform them that we are very much interested in hearing from them.

    So thank you very much again.

    We are going to move in camera for one agenda item. We'll call this portion of the meeting to a close.