November 20, 2003

Mr. A. Ian Gillespie
President and CEO
Export Development Canada
151 O’Connor Street,
Ottawa, ON K1A 1K3

The Hon. Pierre Pettigrew
Minister of International Trade
Department of Foreign Affairs
125 Sussex Drive, Tower B, 5th Floor
Ottawa, ON   K1A 0G2

Dear Minister Pettigrew and Mr. Gillespie,

Thank you for forwarding me Rev. 2 of the OECD “Common Approaches on Environment and Officially Support Export Credits 2003.”

October 27, 2003

Mr. A. Ian Gillespie
President and CEO
Export Development Canada
151 O’Connor street,
Ottawa, ON   K1A 1K3

The Hon. Pierre Pettigrew
Minister of International Trade
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
125 Sussex Drive, Tower B, 5th Floor
Ottawa, ON  K1A 0G2

Re.: Draft OECD recommendation on Common Approaches on Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits: 2003 Review – Revised version 1

Dear Mr. Gillespie and Minister Pettigrew:

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to comment on the ‘Common Approaches on Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits: 2003 Review – Revised version 1’ (Rev. 1).

October 27, 2003

Canadian Business Journal

BY MATTHEW McCLEARN

COVER DATE: Sept. 2, 2003

Many Canadians cannot point to Lesotho on a map. Some have never heard of it. In the cruel calculus of world politics, business, trade and finance, it is almost completely irrelevant. And yet, this tiny nation landlocked by South Africa must loom large on the minds of executives at Acres International Ltd., an engineering consulting firm based in Oakville, Ont. Its legal representatives are now in the capital, Maseru, for what could be the endgame of the most important battle in the company's 79-year history.

Debt aspects related to export credit agencies
The cancellation of Third World debt has been a rallying cry of social movements for years, gaining in volume and numbers in 2000 as a result of the global Jubilee movement. Much attention has been focused on the debts owed by poor countries to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However, export credit agencies collectively own more debt of Third World countries than the World Bank and the IMF combined.