The
Canadian economy is among the world's soundest. It belongs to the G-7 countries (the Group
of Seven leading industrialized countries comprising Canada, France, Italy, Germany,
Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States).
Canada has enormously rich sources of raw materials - coal, gold, uranium, other metal ores, oil and gas. It
occupies the first place in the world in the mining of uranium (34% of the world
production), zinc (19.6%), it produces the biggest amount of the world's sulphur (20%) and
paper for newspapers (63%). It occupies the second or third places in many other raw
materials including metals such as e.g. nickel (27%) and production of aluminium and
natural gas etc. The main mining province is Alberta.
Machine-building and chemical industries
are highly developed, too. Hamilton and Sydney are main centres of iron and steel
industries. Motor-car industry has its biggest works in Chatham and Oshawa, ships are
built on the banks of Great Lakes, in Montreal and Toronto. The provinces of Ontario and
Newfoundland have large paper mills.
Hydro-electric industry is highly
developed especially in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Quebec, Ontario and British
Columbia with their large forests provide wood for
building, furniture and paper production. Almost half the land area of Canada is covered
by forests.
Although only 7 per cent of the land is suitable for farming, agriculture is the world's fifth largest producer of wheat (after former USSR, the USA, China and India) and
the second largest wheat exporter. 80 per cent of Canada's farmland is in the prairies.
Other important agricultural items are live-stock
production, oats, vegetables, fruits, tobacco, dairy products, leather.
Canada is the eighth largest trading nation among the industrialized
market economies and an active partner in international investment. Over the past quarter
of a century, resource exports have become a less important part of Canada's trade mix,
representing about 20% of Canadian exports now, compared with 40% in 1963.
As in many other industrial countries there has been a shift in
employment toward services industries (including community, business and personal) which now employ
about two-thirds of the Canadian work force. At the same time, the growing role of
knowledge-based activity has put pressure on industry and on the whole society in
promoting further education.
Valid currency is Canadian Dollar.
