Vice President's Greeting

Brian McCready
Vice President, CME Alberta

Hello and welcome to Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Alberta.

As provincial vice president, I am proud to represent Alberta manufacturers and exporters in their quest to be world class and become strong participants in our challenging global economy.

Alberta is an exciting place to manufacture all types of value added products.  Ranked number three in Canada in output we have more than 10,000 value-added manufacturers in Alberta that provide products that range from nano devices for the bio medical sector, plastics, food products, forestry products, recognized world  class manufacturing equipment for most sectors, and huge steel fabrication and pressure vessel manufacturers.

There are currently more than 120,000 Albertans employed in manufacturing. Manufacturing shipments were up by 11 per cent since 2005, to 67.0 billion. Alberta exports of goods and services in 2007 were just over 80 billion dollars, an increase of 3.7 per cent over 2006.

We currently have more than 175 billion dollars of projects under development or proposed in the area of new capital investment supported by strong oil sands extraction and upgrade investments. The total number of employed in Alberta in February 2008 was more than 2 million, an increase of 200,000 since 2005. Alberta's total population as of October 2007 was 3,482,000, a 2.3 percentage point growth over the same month in 2006.

CME Alberta has been very involved with development and delivery of the 11th Annual Buyer-Seller Forum. This forum has become the event to attend because of the opportunities presented by the amount of capital investment in Alberta and the need for manufacturing resources not available in Alberta. Look for the NBSF 2012 on our website www.nationalbuyersellerforum.ca.

We now sit on the Deputy Minister's Advisory Council for the Alberta Employment & Immigration - Building and Educating Tomorrow's Workforce. This important initiative will bring attention and solutions to the 85,000 person gap in the number of workers available versus the number of workers required over the next decade.

In our continued work with the Manufacturers' Health and Safety Association we are providing education and support to Alberta companies in their quest to provide safe and healthy workplaces for Albertans. New programs have been developed for foreign workers to understand the high health and safety standards we are proud of maintaining in Alberta. There is still a challenge in reducing the number of incidents that take place in Alberta. This will lead to continued reduction in premiums that all Alberta manufactures are currently enjoying.

The Alberta Manufacturing Consortiums of CME members have developed programs for their members based upon LEAN training, continuous improvement, and technology adoption. The members of the consortium have all had significant results in manufacturing cost reduction increases in working capital, and productivity increases of their employees. These consortia allow CME to deliver value in regard to the skills initiative identified as one of the highest issues of concern in CME's Management Issues Survey. We also are now delivery online programs with Arizona State University.

Alberta exports more than 45 per cent of the value added goods manufactured in the province and the export of services is increasing dramatically. CME has strong connections with Trade Team Alberta, Industry Canada, Export Development Canada, Canadian Commercial Corporation. Business Development Bank of Canada and the Alberta Ministry of International, and Intergovernmental Relations. We have strong representation of exporters on our CME Alberta Board of Directors. This allows us to assist our members on their journey through the export process. Our national office has very strong expertise in solving many of the challenges faced by exporters as they seek new markets for their products and services.

The 4th Annual Alberta Export Awards will take place on November 23, 2012 in Calgary. Alberta companies have always been leaders in innovative business approaches and the Alberta Export Awards are an opportunity to recognize companies that are leaders in their industries.

All of us in the Alberta office look forward to your comments and inquiries. We are at the service of our members and prospective members.

Brian McCready
Vice President, CME Alberta