PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2015

MARKET SURVEY 37 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 09/15 is a focus on agriculture. All sectors of the economy are to a consider- able extent dependent on export, the USA being by far the largest trading partner. Canada has enormous stocks of timber and water at its disposal. 46% of the land area is covered by forest. The land mass accounts for more than approx. 20% of the Earth’s fresh water reserves, 7% of which are considered renewable. In addition it boasts the world’s third largest crude oil reserves after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, primarily in the form of oil sands in the province of Alberta. Additionally, Canada occupies fifth place in world- wide gas and oil prospecting. Since the beginning of the 1990s diamonds have been mined north of the Arctic Circle in the North West Territories and Nunavut. Today Canada is one of the largest produc- ers of diamonds in the world. The country is also the second largest uranium producer in the world (18% of world production) after Kazakhstan. The large deposits of non- energy raw materials such as iron ore, gold, copper, nickel and rare earths are becoming increasingly more important. Parallel to this Canada has a high-powered economy that is also oriented towards the technologies of the future. Important areas of the processing industry include automotive and aircraft con- struction, the metal industry, the food industry, timber and paper processing, the chemi- cal industry as well as infor- mation and communication technology. 2012 2013 2014 GDP nominal (billions of USD) 1,821 1,825 1,768 GDP growth real (%) 1.70 2.00 2.30 Unemployment rate (%) 7.31 7.08 7.03 (Sources: Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade 15.03.2015, US economic statistics, Wikipedia)