Building on Canada's strong trade relationship with these trading partners will help grow Canada's middle-class by creating good, well-paying jobs, and will help the government reach its ambitious target of $75 billion in agricultural exports by 2025.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lawrence MacAulay, concluded a week-long trip to Japan and South Korea. He met with the Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Mr. Ken Saito, and the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, Mr. Katsunobu Kato, to highlight Canada and Japan's longstanding and collaborative trade relationship, and to reaffirm its importance in the context of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which was officially signed yesterday in Santiago, Chile.

The CPTPP will provide enhanced market access to key Asian markets, including Japan. This landmark agreement will give the Canadian agricultural industry preferential access to all CPTPP countries and will provide new market access opportunities for a wide range of Canadian products, including meat, grains, pulses, maple syrup, wines and spirits, seafood and agri-food.

The Minister also attended FOODEX Japan 2018, Asia's largest professional trade show for food and beverages. The event hosted over 80,000 buyers from a variety of businesses including food services, distribution and trading. Minister MacAulay used the opportunity to promote Canada's world-class agricultural products and highlight trade opportunities. Canadian industry representatives reported qualifying more than 1169 leads, 20 percent of which they believe will lead to future business. In terms of sales, industry representatives reported some $7.2 million in on-site sales, and $15.5 million in anticipated sales, over the next year.

Minister MacAulay, along with a delegation of Canadian industry stakeholders, met with representatives from Costco Japan. The Minister discussed the success of Canada's high-quality pork exports and congratulated Costco on their decision to exclusively import Canadian pork at all of their Japanese stores.

In South Korea, Minister MacAulay met with government officials, as well as representatives from a range of domestic industry groups. This included retailer Lotte Mart, an East-Asian superstore operating 122 branches in the country, and the Korean Meat Importers Association, which operates closely with the South Korean government to facilitate trade. The Minister underlined Canada's role as a world leader in meat exports, and encouraged further increases in trade volume between our two countries.