Canada is a growing market for Northern Ireland businesses, particularly for machinery, transport and equipment exports.
Invest NI’s Toronto office, which opened last year, is proving a valuable source of guidance and knowledge to help businesses explore and secure new export opportunities.
One company to benefit is Sensoteq Ltd. Based in Belfast, Sensoteq has recently signed a deal worth over $1.2M with Canadian distributor, Eurotech. The two-year contract to provide its wireless machine health monitoring systems was secured following Sensoteq’s attendance at last year’s Waste and Recycling Expo in Niagara Falls, Ontario, supported by Invest NI.
Sensoteq CEO Idir Boudaoud said “We have seen huge business opportunities for Sensoteq in Canada. We have visited the market multiple times to build on the initial contacts made at last year’s Waste and Recycling Expo and we continue to strengthen our business relationships.
“Our contract with distributor Eurotech is of huge importance to the future growth of the business and we are very optimistic about our growth in this market.”
Sensoteq designs and manufactures wireless machine health monitoring systems which predict early life failure to help avoid costly unplanned downtime.
Invest Northern Ireland is currently hosting a trade mission to Canada and CEO Alastair Hamilton joined the eight local businesses in Toronto.
Commenting on the trade mission Alastair Hamilton added: “Canada is a key target market for ambitious Northern Ireland companies. The latest HMRC figures show that exports to Canada over the last four years have grown 33 per cent and are currently valued at £471million1, demonstrating the valuable business opportunities which exist here.
“Companies like Sensoteq demonstrate the great export opportunities Canada offers to our local companies. Focus on the Canadian market is paying dividends for Northern Ireland companies and we look forward to more success in this market.”
Alastair is on a weeklong visit programme to Canada and the United States of America.