The latest issue of the Business Council’s economic newsletter, Policy Perspectives, provides a snapshot of British Columbia’s international exports over the last decade. Resource based products as a share of total exports have increased from 76% in 2002 to 80% in 2011.

• Metallic minerals and energy products more than doubled their share of the composition of BC’s exports with coal, equal to one fifth of the province’s merchandise exports, being a significant contributor to the overall increase
• The value of BC”s wood product exports dropped from $9.3 billion in 2002 to $5.7 billion last year, however with a US housing recovery and the development of new offshore markets in Asia, wood products are set to rebound in dollar terms
• With 80% of BC’s workforce in the service industry, the export of services to international markets is often overlooked. Canada ranks among the top ten global service exports and while there are significant limitations in the available data on services trade at the provincial level, estimates suggest that this could be as high as 20-25% of BC’s international exports

Maintaining a competitive environment for investment and economic development across our key resource sectors – and primary export industries - is critical to BC’s future economic well-being.