CETA Market Access Program for EU Businesses

With nearly 90 billion euro exchanged annually EU Member States and Canada are key trading partners. By creating a free trade zone between Canada and the 28 Member States of the European Union and greatly facilitating cross-border trade in goods and services and foreign direct investment (FDI), the recently concluded Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is set to further expand this strong partnership.

The Market Access Support Program for EU Businesses in Canada in the CETA Context (CETA Market Access Program for EU Businesses) was launched in January 2017 by the EU with the threefold objectives to:

• Help EU business, and particularly small and medium sized enterprises, to gain comprehensive, sector-specific information about the new opportunities that CETA will bring.
• Identify existing market access barriers in Canada on both federal and provincial levels, and to provide recommendations to the EU Institutions, EU business associations, networks and chambers for defining adequate mitigating strategies.
• Create a sustainable channel of communication between EU businesses in or seeking to enter Canada and institutional stakeholders.