Head of Canadian manufacturers’ group comes to T&T

Dr Jayson Myers, President and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters will be the feature speaker at the T&T Manufacturers’ Assocaition’s President’s Dinner on Wednesday at the Trinidad Hilton and Conference Centre in Port-of-Spain. Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters is that country’s largest industry and trade association and is dedicated to improving business conditions for Canada’s manufacturers and exporters and helping its more than 10,000 members compete and win in domestic and international markets.

Dr Myers is also the chair of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, a coalition of more than 40 industry associations that have come together to speak with a common voice on priority issues for Canada’s manufacturing sector. He is a well-known economic commentator, and is widely published in the fields of Canadian and international economics, as well as technological and industrial change. He has been recognised by consulting firm Watson Wyatt as the most accurate economic forecaster in Canada.

Dr Myers sits on special advisory councils to the Minister for International Trade, the Minister of Industry, Immigration Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, and the Canadian Border Services Agency.

He is co-chair of Canada’s Roundtable on Workforce Skills and Vice-Chair of both the Ontario Manufacturing Council and the Great Lakes Manufacturing Council. He studied at Queen’s University, Kingston, and the University of British Columbia in Canada, and at the London School of Economics and Oxford University in the United Kingdom. 

He has held teaching and research positions at Oxford University and Warwick University, also in the UK. CME—known as the Alliance of Manufacturers & Exporters Canada until October 2000—was formed through the 1996 merger of the Canadian Manufacturers Association (CMA) and the Canadian Exporters Association (CEA). The organisation’s history dates back more than 140 years.

Founded in 1871, CME represents more than 10,000 leading companies nationwide, and through various initiatives, including the establishment of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, touches more than 100,000 companies from coast to coast, engaged in manufacturing, international trade, and service-related industries. More than 85 per cent of CME’s members are small and medium-sized enterprises.

Collectively, CME's membership network accounts for an estimated 82 per cent of Canadian manufacturing production and 90 per cent of all goods and services exports.