Trade diplomat says brushing off prospective customers if higher-paying markets come knocking can create bad blood
Relationships matter.
That’s important to understand in the Indo-Pacific region, where there is enormous potential but where customers need to be treated respectfully, according to Canada’s new agricultural trade representative in the region.
“Be very careful about going into a market and the expectations that are raised, and not being able to meet those,” said Diedrah Kelly, executive director of the Indo-Pacific Agriculture and Agri-Food Office in Manila, Philippines.
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There are many opportunities among the booming populations and economies of the region, including pulse-consuming giant India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia and already established major markets such as China, Japan, South Korea and Philippines. Many companies say they want to take advantage of the different opportunities.
However, when it comes to actually closing deals, Canadian marketers can upset prospective buyers when they forget all about them if premium-paying buyers in China can take all they have.
Kelly said she has heard from a number of non-Chinese crop buyers that “Canadian companies will come, and they will meet with us, and they will make promises, and they will raise expectations and then they disappear, they ghost us,” said Kelly, who has had a long career in foreign affairs and diplomacy and is a geopolitical expert.
This can leave buyers confused about what went wrong. If the Canadian company with which they have been speaking simply stops communicating, the spurned buyer doesn’t know if the problem was price, supply, something about the product or another concern.
Buyers outside China and the other top-paying markets know they can’t always compete on price, but if they can’t count on Canadian products, they will turn to other sources that are more reliable.
Buyers say, “we (know we) are the back-up option (to China). We don’t want to be the back-up option. We have our own requirements. Our consumers would like to have regular access to those products,” said Kelly.
Marketers and exporting companies might have to make “strategic decisions” to “carve out” a portion of their products for specific markets and consistently be willing to supply those markets, even if they do not have the highest prices, Kelly said, if they want to reduce their overreliance on markets such as China and the United States.
“Do we want to put all our eggs into those big baskets?” said Kelly.
The new office in Manila was created after prolonged lobbying by private sector exporters such as the special crops industry, which has long felt underrepresented in Asia. Australia and the U.S. are large and well-established competitors with big promotional operations on the ground. The Manila office will try to give Canadian companies a better shot at thriving in the region.
“We hope that the presence and the trouble-shooting we will provide will help advance your strategic goals, but also enhance the existing Canadian government footprint that is in the region,” said Kelly.
