Having emerged as a strong economy post-recession, Saskatchewan wants to continue the economic momentum by offering more jobs in the province, said Rob Norris, Saskatchewan Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour on Friday.
Leading a business delegation to India, Mr. Norris aimed to promote Saskatchewan as a high value destination for investment in commericalising and distributing R&D-based products. He invited entrepreneurs from India and their families to invest, work and prosper in Saskatchewan, explaining the conducive working atmosphere, tax structure and immigrant policy.
“Saskatchewan's universities provide exceptional research infrastructure, R&D collaboration and top quality education at a low cost. The University of Saskatchewan is looking at research collaboration with India particularly in agriculture, and in vaccines. We have enhanced our immigrant entrepreneur programmes to encourage entrepreneurs to invest in science and technology commercialisation and large scale investment projects,” he said.
Addressing a roundtable session on ‘India-Canada advantage for building strategic partnerships,' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said Saskatchewan had the highest job growth in Canada in 2009.
Currently, it offered 6,195 jobs in various sectors and it planned to raise it to 80,000 to 90,000 jobs over the next five years.
‘Brain gain'
“The present job offerings might look small in numbers. We are taking steps to fill up by investing in the province, inviting back expatriate and new comers from Canada and from different parts of the world. There has been a ‘brain gain' in our province after the launch of Synchrotron Institute. The mining sector would provide more jobs in the next decade,” he said.
On Saturday, the Minister will visit a vocational training institute, representatives of women self help groups and small and undeveloped tribal community in and around Chennai.
In the coming days, he will address businessmen in Puducherry and New Delhi.
Rupen Pandya, Saskatchewan Assistant Deputy Minister, responsible for immigration, urged entrepreneurs to invest in science and technology and large-scale investment projects and said the process of immigrant would be completed within six months and two months respectively. Omar Allam, Canada's vice consul and trade commissioner in South India, said India was a very important partner for Canada bilaterally, regionally and multi-laterally.
C.V. Karthik Narayanan, CII-SR past chairman, said India-Canada trade relations were hampered by lack of information in the private sector on both sides about trade opportunities, tariff peaks and quotas in Canada that impacted Indian exports, business visa delays and lack of investment protection.
