Trade
Both as workers and consumers, we participate daily in Canadian trade. We drink orange juice from Florida or buy Alberta beef burgers for lunch. We work in fashion retailing or export cars to the
Contributing most to the trade surplus were energy and forestry products. In 2004, we exported $44 billion more in energy products and $36 billion more in forest products than we imported. The
Trading partners
The
Since 1994, exports to the
China overtook Japan in 2003 to become Canada’s second largest trading partner. In 2004, we imported $24 billion worth of merchandise from
With the acceleration of globalization and the expansion of free trade over the past two decades,
Interprovincial trade
Trade between the provinces has always been vital to the Canadian economy. In a country as diverse as
The only province to have a trade surplus in interprovincial trade in 2004 was
Wholesale trade
Wholesale traders are essentially the middlemen of the trading process, the link between the manufacturer and the marketplace. Wholesale merchants primarily buy merchandise from manufacturers in order to resell it to retailers, other businesses, or other countries.
In 2004, wholesalers sold $450 billion worth of goods, almost double the amount of sales in 1994. Over half of these sales came from
The wholesale gross margin—the return that wholesalers get on their purchases—was 19% in 2003, a slight decline from 1999, when the margin was 21%. The highest gross margins among wholesalers were in office and professional equipment, at 33%, and in apparel, at 32%. Wholesalers of petroleum products, at 7%, and motor vehicles, at 8%, recorded the lowest gross margins in 2003.
Retail trade
The retail industry is primarily engaged in selling consumer goods and related services to the general public. Retailers come in all shapes and sizes, from large chain stores and car dealerships to small independent stores.
In 2004, the sales of all retail stores totalled $347 billion, an increase of 62% since 1994. The largest amount of sales came from new and used car dealers, which together posted $83 billion of sales in 2004. Over the past 10 years, home centres and hardware stores experienced the largest growth in sales, which more than doubled from 1994 to 2004.
Sales from computer and software stores boomed in the late 1990s, reaching $2.2 billion in 2000, but have tapered off in recent years with 2004 sales totalling $1.6 billion.
The overall gross margin for retailers in 2003 was 26%, a figure that has gone unchanged for five years. Chain stores had a 10% higher gross margin than non-chain stores in 2003. Still, non-chain stores represented the majority of retail sales, with $207 billion in revenue, compared with $150 billion for chain stores.
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