53.7 F
San Diego
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

Canada Set to Open Local Trade Office

Canada Set to Open Local Trade Office

BY JULIE POUCHER HARBIN

Canadian companies are hitching their wagons to a rising star , the San Diego economy.

A new Canadian Consulate Trade Office is scheduled to open in early December in Downtown’s Emerald Plaza Center to help small and mid-size Canadian companies benefit from what Canadian officials perceive is an economy on the upswing.

According to Nancy Bresolin, deputy consul general and senior trade commissioner for Canada’s Los Angeles Consulate General, the San Diego consulate will initially include a consul , yet to be announced , and two business development officers, one for IT and one for biotech. Bresolin said it’s part of Canada’s “aggressive” strategy to show San Diego companies the advantages of doing business with Canada.

Plans for a heightened Canadian presence in the local economy come at a time when some officials are concerned that other U.S. states and foreign countries are trying to lure San Diego businesses to leave California.

Kelly Cunningham, research director and economist for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said Canada is “competing with us” in the high-tech and biotech areas.

“I think we are more concerned that they’re (Canada) trying to take our biotech firms and recruit them away,” he said. “A lot of areas (are) trying to recruit our high-tech and biotech companies away from here.”

Cunningham added, “The heads of companies are talking and telling us that they are contacted almost on a weekly basis by companies in other states, (but) I can’t pinpoint it all to Canada.”

Russ Gibbon, business development officer for San Diego’s Economic Development Division, said the threat from other cities to take local businesses away is the most worrisome, followed by other states, the Far East, Canada and Europe.

“Companies aren’t just going to pick up and move to Canada because costs are 10 or 20 percent lower or something like that,” he said. “There’d have to be some other good reason for being there, like an existing operation that had excess capacities within that particular company’s empire.”

Bresolin said Canada is not “luring business,” but “trying to look for investment.”

“We’re not looking for companies to close down and move to Canada,” she said. “We’re looking for them to do some research and development and manufacturing or clinical trials in Canada which would be more effective and efficient there and ultimately make them a stronger company.”

Canadian companies already have a high profile in San Diego in real estate development, especially in Downtown, and several small Canadian defense contractors work with the U.S. military locally.

Joe Werner, chief operating officer of Intergulf Development Group of Vancouver, British Columbia, used to commute weekly from Vancouver, but now stays here most of the time. The residential developer said the number of Canadian businesspeople in the area has been growing steadily and “it’s about time” that the Canadians had a trade office in San Diego.

Business Partners

Canada’s Los Angeles consulate Business Development Officer Tom Palamides said the key to economic success for small- and mid-size Canadian companies is partnership.

“A lot of the Canadian companies, if they want to survive, have to export (and) they have to find U.S. partners.” Palamides, a self-described road warrior connects Canadian IT companies with small and mid-size local businesses as well as big players like Qualcomm Inc., SAIC, and the San Diego office of Hughes Network Systems.

He said that while there’s plenty of growth opportunities for small Canadian IT companies in San Diego, the barriers to entry for biotech are higher and the costs in capital outlay and time are prohibitive.

Though Palamides said “Canada will never be a La Jolla,” he said the country fits the bill for helping those biotech companies grow.

“Canada’s biotech strength is really on the R & D; side … their universities and top-notch research facilities,” he said.

Calgary-based SignalCraft Technologies Inc., which specializes in engineering design and wireless product development, has been doing business with San Diego companies for 2 & #733; years.

One area company they work with is San Diego-based Littlefeet, Inc., a wireless telecomm infrastructure company. According to the company’s co-founder and president Bernard Gobeil, one of the advantages of working with a Canadian company is cost. For example, at his company the cost of hiring an engineer in Calgary tends to be less than hiring one in San Diego because the cost of living is cheaper there.

St. John’s, Newfoundland-based ZedIT Solutions, a Web application development and technology consulting company, counts Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Sony Electronics among its biggest clients.

The company also worked with local biotech Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp. in the past. Sony Electronics is their only current client in San Diego.

Alex Rooney, regional manager of ZedIT Solutions’ lone U.S. office in Laguna Hills said while the company doesn’t have immediate plans to open an office in San Diego, he sees long-term potential for that happening.

“I’m excited about a consulate in San Diego because it’s much closer to me and I’m already there on a regular basis,” Rooney said, noting that a consulate is a good resource when a business is “just trying to set up shop.”

He stressed that modern technology has played a major role in the diversification of San Diego’s economy today, as compared to a decade ago when it was defense-centric.

“We’ve been through all the growing pains, and the technology industry is a much different landscape than when we first set up shop here in 1997, so you can imagine the changes that have come out of it,” he said.

“San Diego, in my opinion is one of the world’s great cities. And I think that those types of locations and climate and business environment will only attract people in the long run,” Rooney said. “The beautiful thing about technology is it attracts young ambitious, energetic, intelligent people, and that’s really the lifeblood of a prosperous area.”

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-