Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue 23 - Evidence - Meeting of March 11, 2015
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 4:17 p.m. to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to foreign relations and international trade generally (topic: trade promotion).
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is meeting today to continue to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to foreign relations and international trade generally. We have at this time the topic of trade promotion.
We have one panel here by way of video conference. I trust that you can hear me. We did have difficulties the last time, and we appreciate that you're making the extra effort to come back from Winnipeg. I trust that it's warmer now in Winnipeg.
We have before us from CanAgro Exports, Ms. Sheila Kehler, Co-owner; and Ms. Melissa Vencatasamy, Chief Financial Officer and Co-owner.
Welcome to the committee by way of video conference. We'll ask you to make your opening statements and then senators will usually have questions that they'd like to put before you.
Please proceed.
Sheila Kehler, Co-owner, CanAgro Exports: I'll be making the submission. Thank you so much for inviting us today. This is our first time presenting to the Senate committee, so we'll start by introducing our business.
My name is Sheila Kehler, a business owner, and this is our daughter, Melissa Vencatasamy, who is the chief financial officer and co-owner in our family-owned business, CanAgro Exports Incorporated, and genAG Incorporated.
Number one, CanAgro Exports is the export side of our business. We have 10 employees in Canada and 44 in our dealership in Kazakhstan. We're located in Winkler, Manitoba. We export Canadian and U.S.-built farm equipment into Kazakhstan.
We have approximately $25 million in gross sales annually, selling Versatile tractors, Amity seeding equipment, MacDon windrowers, Elmer's grain carts and harrows, Valmont irrigation equipment and aftermarket part sales. We also sell Bednar tillage equipment built in the Czech Republic and World Trac tractors built in India in the Kazakhstan market.
We are also working on two projects in China. We're working to joint venture the manufacturing of tillage and seeding equipment suited to farm size in China and to be sold in China. The Chinese government has issued a subsidy to Chinese farmers to update their equipment to North American standards.
We're also looking at a joint venture project to manufacture larger tillage and seeding equipment to export to the Chinese farmers who purchase land outside of China, as well into Kazakhstan, Russia and possibly other countries, including Iceland.
We're also working with Worldtrac Tractor manufacturing company out of India. We sell their product in Kazakhstan and are looking to set up local manufacturing and assembly to avoid the VAT.
We are also in the design and development stages of building a power unit and chassis to harvest sugar cane in India. This is a project with an Indian sugar company that will design and build the sugar cane thrashing unit that will attach to the power unit we are designing and building in Canada.
On the Canadian side of our business is genAG. We have two locations in Manitoba at present with 40 employees. We are in negotiations to purchase a third location, which would then give us access to all of central and southern Manitoba as well as part of Saskatchewan. We import Horsch seeding equipment and tillage equipment from Germany through their U.S. location. We also import Grimme and Spudnik potato equipment from Germany and Idaho and Valmont irrigation equipment from Nebraska to sell in Canada.
Along with this, we sell numerous short lines and aftermarket parts in Canada. We have also been approached by Worldtrac Tractor from India to set up local assembly for their product in Manitoba and distribute across Canada, as well as export to the Northern U.S.A. and Iceland.
We have begun working with a Manitoba trade representative for India on this project.
Some of the issues we face in exporting are timely shipping. We have faced rail strikes, shortage of available containers, overload imports around the world, et cetera.
We work with only one bank in Kazakhstan that has little available cash, thereby causing us to deal with cash flow and set terms with our suppliers until the money comes in. We also face issues with currency devaluation in the countries where we work. We also face the issue of the Value Added Tax, which is forcing us to set up local manufacturing and assembly to stay competitive in the market.
Some government help has been available to us. The EDC has been extremely helpful in providing short-term receivables insurance to our suppliers so that our suppliers can give us terms, usually 180 days from the time of shipment. We need the 180 days to source, ship, assemble, sell and collect payment in Kazakhstan, and in order to be able to pay our suppliers. This is critical as banks will not finance inventory that is being exported.
There are challenges we face with EDC. For instance, it takes a long time to establish a working relationship with EDC. The staff turnover in the underwriting department is frustrating as each new person needs time to understand our business and, as exporters, that is time that we don't have when trying to finish a deal with our customers. The length of time to access results from EDC is frustrating. Our window of sales opportunity in Kazakhstan is short, and we miss sales simply because it takes too long to get the approvals from EDC.
Manitoba Trade and Investment has also been a big help to us and is a large promoter of our business in trade shows around the world, working alongside us promoting Canadian-built, particularly Manitoba-built, equipment. We work with trade commissioners in Kazakhstan, China and in India.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation. We will now go to questions.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing before our committee by videoconference.
My questions will be quick. In your view, what are the main risks faced by Canada's small and medium-sized businesses that want to export goods and services, or increase their exports?
[English]
Melissa Vencatasamy, Chief Financial Officer and Co-owner, CanAgro Exports: The main risks that we would face would be primarily around financing. It's difficult to secure financing in a foreign market and to trust that the financing will actually pay you, because many times in the markets where we work we find that a contract only means something when money has actually transferred hands.
It is difficult to have security in the contracts and in the financing that is offered from a foreign country.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I have a second question. In the case of Kazakhstan and the 44 places where you can sell your products, were you forced to form joint ventures with companies in Kazakhstan to be able to sell your products, or were you able to set up shop there without having to partner with Kazakhs?
[English]
Ms. Vencatasamy: We did go to Kazakhstan ourselves, but in order to operate a business in the country, we have to have a local director. The person has to be a Kazakh citizen, and they're the only people allowed to have full signing authority for the operations there.
We do work there. We spend quite a lot of time in Kazakhstan every year, but we have to work in partnership with a local person. So we've hired somebody who works there for us, and then we do all of our sales directly from Canada to Kazakhstan so that the sales go through Canada and not through our Kazakh location because we don't have full control over how the operations are done there.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: You also mentioned that you are making parts in India. Did you find it difficult to establish yourself there and find partners?
[English]
Ms. Kehler: No, we didn't find that difficult. We connected with this company in India through the trade show that was in Astana, Kazakhstan. That's where we met the representative from the Indian company who was interested in our bringing their equipment into Kazakhstan, and that has worked reasonably smoothly.
Senator Downe: Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned the staff turnover at EDC causes problems for you. Do you have any understanding of why there's such a high staff turnover? Have people commented on that to you?
Ms. Vencatasamy: In my experience, staff are simply promoted within EDC, which is great. I understand for them that's a wonderful opportunity. For us, when you work with an underwriter, the more they understand about your business, the more they're able to do to help you and even offer other solutions that I might personally not be aware that EDC would have to offer.
If an underwriter understands your business, knows what you're doing and what your goals are and has a bit of your history, they're quick to say that might not work for us but EDC does have another thing we could try. I'm not always aware of the programs that EDC has. So every time we get a new underwriter, we have to kind of start that process over again.
We just were informed within the last month that we would no longer have a dedicated underwriter but that we would now be working with a pool of underwriters. I think there are five people on that team. So every time we call for a request, we could likely get a different person. That I find a little bit frustrating because, like I said, it works a little bit better if they already know about our business.
Senator Downe: I certainly can understand your complaint. This is something the committee may want to pursue. It sounds like the underwriters, who are so important to exporters, are undervalued in the EDC. That's something we may want to follow up on, chair. Thank you.
The Chair: My first question is out of curiosity. How did you link up with Kazakhstan from Winkler, Manitoba? You have so many suppliers. I'm from Saskatchewan, so I do know that we have attempted to sell farm machinery anywhere from Bulgaria to Romania and then into the 'stans. I'm curious how you linked up with Kazakhstan, per se.
Ms. Vencatasamy: It happened a little bit by accident. My dad, so her husband, was working in sales. He used to own a John Deere dealership in southern Manitoba, and they were approached by a Russian farm, asking, "If we send you money, will you send us equipment?" That's how it started. That would have been about 14 years ago. When the equipment shipped, they asked if we would be able to send someone who could show the people in the country how to use the equipment because it was foreign for them. They didn't know how to operate it, and they didn't know how to maintain it.
We went to try to train them on how to work with it, with the tools that they had in country. Then they told us that they had sold one of the tractors that we sold them across the border into Kazakhstan, and we needed to go there and show them how to use it. So we went to Kazakhstan and really found that the customers there were very hospitable, very easy to work with, and we just decided, out of the two countries, to put down some roots in Kazakhstan and pursue business in that market.
The Chair: We have been studying small and medium businesses and wondering how the government could increase its support for businesses that want to go international. Is there anything you could tell us about how we could urge the government to encourage more risk takers like you?
Ms. Vencatasamy: One of the difficulties that we face is visas because we always need to have a visa to go into a foreign country. If you want to be able to explore more than one country, it gets very difficult. One of the largest frustrations we have is the ability, as a Canadian, to only have one passport because you have to be in Canada, at home, to apply for a visa. The application process can take anywhere from three days to a month. During that time, you can't go anywhere. We make money — our business runs — because we travel. All of the months each year that we have to come back to Canada to renew a visa or get a new visa mean we can't work, at least not with the same effectiveness that we could if we were in the country where we needed to be. That is one thing that comes to the top of my head.
We have some European people that we work with who kind of do the same business working in Kazakhstan or in those markets, and they're allowed to have multiple passports, which means they can send one away for a visa and, while doing that, can still take a trip to Kazakhstan, do their work, come back and switch passports. That would be one thing that would help.
I don't know if there's anything the government can do in partnership with other governments to make that visa process a little bit easier. There are actually a lot of countries that Canadians don't need visas to enter. But all of the countries we work in require visas, so we're particularly stuck in that area.
The Chair: Being centred in Kazakhstan, does it help you to look into, say, Kyrgyzstan or surrounding countries? Have you explored that, or have you chosen Kazakhstan because of its perhaps more stable situation at the moment and, of course, its broad-based agricultural content?
Ms. Vencatasamy: The reason that originally attracted us to Kazakhstan was just that it's such a broad agricultural market. There's so much land, even to this day, that is untilled. So there's still growth potential there, versus a lot of other countries, which are fairly maxed out in terms of their land. It has turned out to be a lot more stable. Although, when we started this, the customer who originally approached us was Russian. We have worked in Russia and have not had a lot of success in that market. It's a lot more volatile.
We haven't done a lot of exploration into some of the other countries around Kazakhstan, simply because there's so much potential in Kazakhstan. We've had our hands fairly full just supplying into that market.
Ms. Kehler: We are looking a little bit into the possibility of some sales in China, neighbouring Kazakhstan, because it's kind of within reach. It's easy to transport between the two countries. So that is one we've kind of looked at, but, as to the smaller ones — Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan — we have not, no.
The Chair: You pointed out the problem of financing and the cash flows, et cetera, and also some of the difficulties with EDC. Can you tell me what your competitors have that we should have?
Ms. Vencatasamy: Yes. Our business is a little bit unique. Our main competitors in Kazakhstan would be companies like John Deere or Case International. These are very large agricultural companies. We would be considered a shortline dealer because we don't have one main brand, like John Deere, that would supply us with every piece of equipment that a farmer needs. We source tractors that are manufactured in Winnipeg and also some other equipment manufactured in Winnipeg. Then we bring in a seeder, which needs to be pulled by a tractor. Those come from North and South Dakota. Because we work with multiple different smaller manufacturers, we don't have a version of John Deere credit that would just supply you with financing and send your equipment over.
We've worked with different banks, but the problem we run into is that a bank, if they're financing your inventory, wants that inventory as security against what they're lending you. It's pretty logical for a floor plan. However, our security goes to Kazakhstan, so a bank isn't really very comfortable with that. We've tried working with different Canadian banks, like HSBC, which would have branches in other countries, and nobody is really willing to do that.
That's where EDC has been a huge partner for us. They've come in and been able to provide our suppliers with insurance against us so that, if we don't pay in 180 days, they could collect from EDC, which has never been an issue. But it just gives us that window, which is what we need, that time to load it all into a container. It takes two to three months to make it to our market. Once it reaches there, we've got customs clearance to deal with, we've got to move it to the various locations in Kazakhstan to get it to the actual customer, figure out financing and get paid, and that is easily a six-month process for us. For that, we love EDC. They've been a huge partner for us in helping us do that. We're actually working with them now on direct financing so that they would loan us money that we would use specifically for purchasing inventory so that we can ship it because, like most manufacturers, they would like us to actually place an order. I'll just give you an example. We would need to make our orders in October, November and December of 2015 for what we anticipate shipping and selling in the spring of 2016. In addition to needing the time to load it, ship it and sell it, we need to give our manufacturers an additional four to six months so that they can plan their production schedules.
EDC is really trying to work with us to provide us with a loan so that we could use that money to secure the inventory and ship it. EDC is willing to do that without taking the inventory as security.
Senator Dawson: I want to come back to the visa issue. As we all know, a million Canadians go to Florida, Arizona, become snowbirds, and 10 years ago it wasn't a problem because they didn't need a passport to go to the U.S. But now, when these people leave, they leave with their passport and that means that they cannot ask for visas to go to work or travel in countries while they are in the United States. I have a case where one of my friends decided to mail his passport home to get a visa request made. Some people lose their luggage in airports. Some people lose their mail, and they lost his passport. So he was stuck in the U.S. He couldn't come back to Canada because he didn't have his passport. I guess there is something there with the number of snowbirds who do go south during the winter. We have to explore the fact that, if we want to help them to be productive, when they're travelling, in getting visa applications, we have to look at it. We're not talking millions of people here; we're talking people who want to do business around the world. We're trying to find ways to help them.
I think we should, as a committee, try to find a way so that when Ms. Kehler and daughter are travelling they can still process visa applications. It's not an easy solution. We know that having double passports can be a problem, but we have to find a way in which visa requirements are not an impediment to doing business. The department's job is to help these people, not hinder them.
I understand we are asking it of third countries, but we write our reports as we go along sometimes in these committees. So we're making recommendations as well, and then you finish off with a question. What do you think? It's supposed to be a question, but I was making a statement.
The Chair: Thank you. They're smiling.
Ms. Kehler: It would definitely be an asset to us to be able to have two passports so we can still travel and do business while we are waiting for a visa, especially because we travel to three different countries that require visas: India, China and Kazakhstan, and also the odd time into Russia. All those countries need visas, and it limits the amount of time that we can travel in a year.
Senator Dawson: I'm asking you, but I'm also asking the chair and committee members: Do you or we know of countries that have a system by which they circumvent this complex problem?
The Chair: You're putting me on the spot. We have had passport people here to talk about this, and we may wish to call them again.
One of questions I was going to ask, except now I'm getting a long list of senators, was the fact that we do have an embassy in Kazakhstan, and there is an alternative of going and applying there. I think it's the swiftness of your travel that precludes some of the options for you, if I understand.
Ms. Vencatasamy: It's actually not the Canadian embassy that we need to work with. To get a visa for Kazakhstan you need to work with the Kazakh embassy. To get a visa for China you need to work with the Chinese embassy.
The Chair: I appreciate that, but we have an embassy there that could assist you, and where to go and how to go quickly.
Ms. Vencatasamy: Possibly, yes.
The Chair: We could explore that issue perhaps with some passport officials who could update us on the existing processes, and particularly this visa issue.
Ms. Kehler: The Kazakh embassy in Kazakhstan will not process a visa for us if we are in that country. We have to be in our home country in order to process that.
The Chair: Exactly.
Ms. Kehler: The embassy in Kazakhstan will help us in whatever way they can, but there are some things they aren't allowed to do.
Senator Downe: The witnesses have indicated that some of the competitors have multiple passports from their home countries that allow them to function. That was the first time I've heard that. I didn't realize some of our competitors were doing that.
The Chair: Some have multiple-entry visas, which is something we have, too.
Senator Downe: They indicated multiple passports.
The Chair: Yes.
Ms. Vencatasamy: We do have a colleague in Germany who has two passports. I know it is possible in the EU, but I don't know anyone else in the Canada or U.S. who would have anything like that, but we have a colleague in Germany who had two passports.
Ms. Kehler: Even when we have a multiple-entry visa, which we always have, we're only allowed so many days in country with that visa. Even if it's a one-year, multiple-entry visa we are still only allowed a certain number of days per entry.
Ms. Vencatasamy: It's a lot of back and forth to and from Canada. When your market happens to be as far away as ours is it's just a lot of extra expense, travel time and things like that. We've lived with it for 12 years, and we have managed to make it work.
Senator Oh: Is it possible to apply for a multiple visa for a longer time? Now a lot of countries offer a longer visa with multiple entries. You could possibly have a five-year visa with multiple entries.
Ms. Vencatasamy: We do that. We get as long a visa as they will give us. We apply for the maximum length every time. With every country we work in it's one year. We have been working with the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Kazakhstan to allow us to get a three-year visa, but that has not been approved completely yet. We've been working on that for about a year in conjunction with the Canadian trade commissioner in Kazakhstan. So we hope that that will go through because we spend the most time in Kazakhstan.
Senator Johnson: Thank you, and good afternoon. How is the weather in Winkler? I'm from Manitoba.
Ms. Vencatasamy: It's really nice here today. We've got plus 5, approximately. It's melting.
Senator Johnson: I told you, Manitoba is the new warm country.
Your agricultural equipment and machinery, is most of it manufactured at home in Manitoba? Do you get elsewhere as well?
Ms. Vencatasamy: Actually, I would say most of it is. Our largest three product lines would be tractors, seeding tools and then MacDon windrowers. Of those, two out of three are manufactured in Winnipeg.
The other products we get, we have a few from Saskatchewan and then we also source from the United States a little bit.
Senator Johnson: Of the equipment you talked about, which is the most wanted, used, or in demand where you're working in Russia and Kazakhstan, and even the other areas where you're seeking new markets?
Ms. Vencatasamy: The MacDon product that's manufactured in Winnipeg is extremely high in demand and basically sells itself. It's not a hard thing to sell. It's a good product. Customers recognize it.
Then I would say the Versatile tractors would be equally so. They're a simple manufacture. They're built without 15 computers in them so they're simple to use and simple to maintain. This is key in a market like Kazakhstan where they don't have high technology tools to repair these things on a field. It's still quite primitive compared to what we would be used to here.
Senator Johnson: Do you see significant growth in the other eight members of the Commonwealth of Independent States outside of the Ukraine?
Ms. Vencatasamy: We work primarily in Kazakhstan. We have been working in Russia and have really pulled back from that now, given the current political situation. We've seen huge growth in Kazakhstan in the last 10, 12 years when we've been there.
When we first started, if we could have one phone call every two or three weeks that was huge. Now they have really good Internet infrastructure and we can talk every day. It has really improved how we can do business between Canada and Kazakhstan. The roads are being redone and buildings are being rebuilt. It's really, in a lot of ways, growing quickly.
As soon as you leave the main city you definitely still see old buildings falling apart and quite a lot of poverty. But overall, their opportunity for education and all these things has really improved in the last 10 years.
Senator Johnson: Thank you. You seem to be taking over from where John Buhler left off, our fellow Manitoban.
Senator Demers: Thank you for your presentation. It's good to see mother and daughter working together.
When you look at the challenges when you started — I believe you mentioned 12 years ago — what advice would you give to other companies in different fields that want to start something abroad? I'm sure it becomes more and more difficult to penetrate those countries. What would be the best advice? There are a lot of people who would like to do it but they're timid and concerned about the challenges they have to face. What would be your advice on that?
Ms. Vencatasamy: The first thing I would probably say is don't be afraid to keep asking questions until you get some answers. When talking with EDC or Manitoba Trade, or whichever trade agencies you're working with, just keep asking. They really do have a lot of answers available. If you don't ask the question in a way that they may be used to hearing it they may not trigger to give you the right answer.
My suggestion would be to ask the questions and keep asking. The other thing where we found some great success in working with EDC is if we work both with our local rep in Manitoba and with the person who represents the country where we work. We work with the representative from EDC who covers Kazakhstan as well as our local representative in Manitoba. That has had some huge benefits for us.
Internally then, EDC can work with someone who is in their organization but understands our market like somebody from Winnipeg never could. However, the person who works and covers Kazakhstan knows the country, speaks the language, understands the culture, and when we finally made that connection, it really helped us get some traction with all the various programs EDC would have to offer, because the person in Russia or Kazakhstan would think of something that wasn't offered to us in Canada because they have so many programs and they vary so much. My advice would be to try to get in touch with trade reps from Canada who are in your foreign market.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much. I'd like to go back to the idea that you just mentioned, that you need a person on the ground in Kazakhstan in order to do business there.
Could you tell us how this happens? How do you go about getting somebody? Do you get advice from Canadian agencies as to who you should look for or from the embassy or the trade commissioner? How does it work?
Ms. Vencatasamy: I can tell you what we did in our situation. We went to the local English university and hired a translator because that was the easiest avenue we could find for a translator. The language they speak in Kazakhstan is Russian, and we don't speak Russian. We started by hiring a few translators on a day-to-day basis, and that gave us a bit of a network of people. From there we ended up hiring their teacher's son to be our director. We built a relationship with the university that way and were able to find our director that way.
Ms. Kehler: I think the question you were asking is how we made the connection with the EDC rep for our country; am I right?
Senator Cordy: No, I was actually wondering how you went about getting somebody that you can trust.
Ms. Vencatasamy: To hire and work for you, yes.
Senator Cordy: You said earlier that sales are done directly from Canada. What is the role of the person in Kazakhstan exactly? Are they just with the culture business mind or what is their role?
Ms. Vencatasamy: We actually have an entire dealership in Kazakhstan, kind of like if you go to buy a car in Canada there is a service manager and technicians and a parts manager and people who work the counter. We also have salespeople who know the culture and speak the language, and then we simply set up the contract itself between the Canadian entity and the Kazakh end buyer.
But everything flows through our operation there so that everything is done in the local language and according to the local legal requirements, except for our contract, which is just the purchase agreement, and they send payment directly to Canada.
We do stock repair supply parts in Kazakhstan, and those are sold locally. The other restriction that we found in many foreign markets is that you have to do all business in a country in the local currency. If you would like to find a Canadian bank that would happily do foreign trade in tenge, then great, but we find that's very difficult to do, and so we prefer to do business in U.S. dollars, because even our Canadian manufacturers sell to us in U.S. dollars. That way we have a bit of natural currency hedging. We also sell in Kazakhstan in U.S. dollars, and the only way we can do that legally is if it's not a Kazakh-country contract. That's where we have to go Kazakhstan directly to Canada.
That helps keep our risk away. The reality is the director of our company there could take it away from us. We have a good relationship, but that is the reality, so that's a risk that you have to be prepared for, and so we keep the profits coming back to Canada.
Senator Cordy: Good idea. I know a Nova Scotian who had a hotel in Russia, and they came in one day and said this is our hotel, and that was the end of story.
I'm wondering about seeking new markets. You mentioned specifically India and said that you had been approached I thought you said at a trade conference or something. Do you attend trade meetings? What do you do?
Ms. Kehler: We do attend a lot of trade shows. There is always a big one in Astana, Kazakhstan once a year — a smaller one in spring but always a big one in fall — and then there is always a big show in Hannover, Germany and then in France as well, the SIMA show. We try and attend a lot of the big shows because there is a lot of international interest in the shows there.
Senator D. Smith: This is sort of an awkward question but I feel I should ask it anyway. In a lot of foreign countries, when Canadians are doing business abroad and encounter requests for payoffs or some version of corruption — this is not an unusual pattern in certain parts of the world — by and large, how do you encounter that or how would you rate Kazakhstan as a place to do business with and comment on that issue?
Ms. Vencatasamy: Kazakhstan is not exempt from that requirement, from this request. We've definitely been asked for things like this. We have found now, with some time, that only certain organizations or certain banks would make requests like this, and so we've obviously tried to steer our business elsewhere. It is really difficult and I think in some ways maybe hindered our growth in the beginning because it was just something we weren't comfortable doing.
The thing we found to kind of go around that is what they require is a relationship. If you're not willing to go for dinner with them or do anything like this, you're not going to have a business relationship with them either. We've tried to go about it that way where we just simply socialize with them, get to know them a bit, and then it seems doing business with a friend is lot easier. It maybe removes us from being this foreign country company that's just coming in.
We set up a local shop. We have local employees, so we are supporting the country, the company there, and we've really found that building relationships with banks and with other suppliers has really helped us.
Senator D. Smith: Thank you for your answer. I frequently hear from Canadians doing business abroad that in a lot of countries they want to get you to know you a bit first and have a level of trust before they really do business, and that's a pattern that exists in a lot of places. I congratulate you on being able to do what you have to do and stay clean and do business and make money. Amen to you.
Ms. Kehler: Thank you.
The Chair: Have you had a need to use legal services or access to the courts in Kazakhstan? Or have you been able to conduct your business in such a way that you have not had that friction that leads you to some dispute-resolving situation?
Ms. Kehler: Not on our side, but we have had issues with customers that we've done business with being taken to court, not always on our behalf but also sometimes on our behalf when we haven't received payment. As far as for ourselves, I don't think as a business we've ever had any court issues we've had to deal with.
Ms. Vencatasamy: No. That is one huge advantage of having a local person being the director of our company there, because when we have needed to consult — we have definitely worked with lawyers there to make a contract or things like this because we do sell locally. There is a leasing company in Kazakhstan that is a Crown corporation, and so when we work with them, our contracts obviously have to be according to Kazakhstan law, and so it is helpful there to have someone who can go and speak with a lawyer and understand them, because no matter how well you learn a second language, legal jargon is very difficult. That has really helped us, but it has been extremely minimal, what we've had to do. We've been very fortunate that way.
The Chair: You have answered all of our questions, and you have certainly intrigued us with your ingenuity to settle and have a base in Kazakhstan. As someone who has worked in that area, it's not an easy area, and distance is one of the issues. Good credit goes to you to have persisted, and I think that's one of the messages also. You have been there 12 years and now you're more comfortable with that.
You've helped us immensely with our study on trade promotion, so we thank you for coming a second time, and this time we were able to have the conversation we needed.
Senators, we are adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)