Agri-food exports are one of the most important sectors for Saskatchewan to expand its international trade, with the province recently focusing on one country's growth.
The United Arab Emirates saw growth in imports of Saskatchewan agri-food products of 19 per cent over 2024 compared to 2023, with a total trade value of $322 million.
Warren Kaeding, minister of trade and export development, talks about some of the work the province's trade offices do around the globe.
"What you'll find is that the trade offices are responsible for ultimately lining up people, lining up companies, lining up entities that have specific interest in what we are trying to sell as a province. They do a great job of facilitating government-to-government meetings."
"Governments are the ones that kind of give approval for a company to go ahead and engage with the private sector company. So it's great to have those government-to-government relationships and get their approval and then that just opens the door for our companies."
With agri-food being one of Saskatchewan's top exports, Kaeding says the advantage they have is the quality of food produced.
"It is something that we do a very good job of here. We supply ingredients really for the food, fuel and fertilizer that the world needs and a lot of those come from our ag sector and certainly the agri-food sector is one area that we've really been able to see some significant sales of that literally going around the world."
That trade and its subsequent growth can be a boon for producers according to Kaeding.
"It helps out growers, it helps out those involved in Agri production, it helps those involved in value-added processing along the way. It has such a profound effect on our economy in so many different ways, and certainly it does relate back to what our primary producer was seeing. He is seeing opportunities that are there around the world and when you've got lots of potential buyers, usually that helps in increasing the value of a commodity as well."
Kaeding says that he hopes to see trade open up even further in the future with work from the multiple international offices of Saskatchewan trade.
"We've got nine international trade offices and the success that we saw in our UE Trade Office, I think is actually multiplied in every one of those trade offices that we've got operating in so many different locations in the world and I think that's a testament to the opportunities that we're able to expand on. I think now Saskatchewan is exporting if I remember right to just over 160 different countries in the world and that is a great start and we've got so many more opportunities to explore.
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