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“Key segments of service exports will help underpin the province’s still respectable economic expansion: tourism, international transportation services, film and television production, and an array of other business services will all continue to grow at a solid clip,” the B.C. Business Council predicted in its fourth quarter 2018 B.C.Economic Review and Outlook. Aided by a favourable exchange rate, tourism revenue grew 41.3 percent in the decade from 2007 to 2017, when receipts reached $18.4 billion, and the number of visitors grew another 6.4 percent, to 6.1 million, in 2018.
But the real driver of provincial growth over the next few years will be energy investment in the North, centred around the LNG Canada liquefied natural gas terminal in Kitimat and associated pipeline construction and natural gas drilling, authors Ken Peacock and David Williams wrote. Collectively budgeted at $40 billion, these projects represent the largest private-sector capital project in Canadian history.
