Canada's trade surplus more than doubled in December from November as exports to a recovering US economy grew to their highest since October 2008 and hit a record for non-US trade partners, Statistics Canada said on Friday. The report was welcome news for the hard-hit export sector and bodes well for growth in the fourth quarter and in 2012.
The December trade surplus bulged to a three-year high of C$2.69 billion ($2.69 billion), from C$1.17 billion surplus in November, topping even the highest of 20 economists surveyed by Reuters. The median forecast was for a C$550 million surplus. "There's a broad industrial base of expansion that we can be happy about in the December numbers. There is a broad regional base to the expansion too," said Peter Hall, chief economist at Export Development Canada, a federal agency that assists exporters.
Shipments to the United States, which buys about 70 percent of Canadian exports, jumped 5.3 percent in the month and were up 14.8 percent on a year-over-year basis. Canada's export sector was the hardest hit in the 2008 recession and has struggled since, due to weak demand in its traditional US market and a strong Canadian dollar. Exports to countries excluding the United States hit a new record high, rising 2.5 percent to C$11.8 billion. Overall exports rose 4.5 percent to C$42 billion, led by machinery and equipment. But exports grew across all sectors.
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