Matchmaking event opens doors to world markets: businesses from over 12 countries congregated for business-to-business meetings in November.

Industries related to the mining and forestry sectors from around the world came together at Naturallia 2002 in a matchmaking event to open doors to the world market.

Naturallia Was an international alliance forum to promote northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec mining and forestry industries.

"Business partnerships from the two areas got together because they felt they had the same resource-based economy and faced the same challenges," says Nicole Laflamme, vice-president of les enterprise at College Boreal.

Businesses from over 12 countries, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Chile, England and South Africa met in Rouyn-Noranda, Que. at the Centre Des Congres to have business-to-business meetings.

The event featured a matchmaking theme. In order to participate, businesses paid a fee, which allowed them to partake in matchmaking sessions, attend conferences and various other planned activities. The premise behind the matchmaking was to ensure companies were dealing with other companies specifically involved with the same ideas and opportunities. Companies were given software beforehand to fill out company profiles and they were matched up with similar companies from other parts of the world.

"It gave Northern Ontario and Quebec businesses an opportunity to have one-on-one meetings to try and get into the export market without having the risks of going to a foreign country," says Rachelle Souliere, a northeastern Ontario export development officer with the Community Futures Development Corporation in Timmins. "They were able to do this right in their own backyard."

About 200 business professionals from across the globe attended the event. Naturallia 2002 was attended by many businesses from across Northern Ontario who came away from the event with partnerships, alliances and a better understanding of how business is conducted around the world.

Terry Ditullio, office administrator at NorFab Metal and Machine attended the event.

"Since we are established domestically and do very well in our current market, we felt with a lot of concentrated effort and the right tools we will be successful in expanding our market to other areas of the world," Ditullio says. "Naturallia 2002 was an excellent tool in assisting us with that goal."

"(Investing in the event) was worth the time and money," Ditullio says. "It gave me the chance to get into contact with, (and understand) the way people do business abroad and how market conditions are in other parts of the world."

Ditullio is looking forward to the next event. NorFab Metal and Machine manufactures underground mining equipment. It does custom fabrication work on ore cars, personnel carriers and all types of rail equipment. NorFab is based in Porcupine and was established in 1993. Previously NorFab has done some exporting to the United States.

Eileen Shewen, consulting manager at Quest Management Systems, saw Naturallia as a great networking and marketing opportunity, but stresses attending an event such as this one is only one step among many in the exporting process.

"It was an opening-the-door session," Shewen says. "To measure the success of this forum will depend on all these various contacts getting in touch with each other."

Shewen says she met with about 16 different companies and liked the social activities planned around the event.

"It loosened things up and gave it a more informal atmosphere. The opportunity to socialize, I think had equal significance to the formal meetings set up."

Quest Management Systems has been in business for two years and is based out of Timmins. They provide environmental, quality and health and safety systems, and also perform audits.

Tom Laughren, quality assurance manager of Gorf Contracting Ltd., attended the event and notes it was a worthwhile venture.

"The event was well organized," Laughren says. "The matchmaking sessions were well done. We made two or three very good connections."

"We would like to broaden our working area and with our fabrication shop; we were looking to see what marketing capabilities we would have in northeastern Quebec and the rest of the world."

Gorf Contracting Ltd. is based out of Timmins and is an umbrella company. They have an equipment rental business, a 22,000-square-foot fabrication shop and a field installation building where they do various types of mechanical and civil work.

Many partners made the Rendez-vous portion possible, including College Boreal, the Venture Centre, the Timmins Economic Development Corp. Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, FedNor, and the Community Futures Development Corporations from Hearst, Kapuskasing, Kirkland Lake, South Timiskaming, East Sudbury, West Nippissing and North Bay, as well as the cities of Timmins, North Bay and Greater Sudbury.

The next event, Naturallia 2004, is slated to take place in Northern Ontario.