July 1998 Edition
ASIA
In its latest report on the world economy, the Conference Board of Canada states that Asia's economic woes, which have already hurt Canadian exporters, will likely continue to the end of the year. The value of Canada's sales to Asia in the first quarter were down 33 per cent from a year earlier as a result of lower commodity prices and reduced export volumes. However, it is expected that the Asian economies will rebound in 1999. Those of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines should expand by 3 per cent, and Japan by 0.8 per cent. Canadian exporters are getting some help from the lower value of the Canadian dollar which makes goods cheaper.
LITERACY
Strong literacy skills are the key to success and to economic well-being in the information-based economy. Those with weak literacy abilities will find it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold in the labour market. Adult literacy is understood to be fundamental to the economic and competitive performance of industrialized nations. For an individual, the level of literacy skills he or she possesses can spell economic success or failure. Close to 50% of Canadian adults at the lowest level of literacy live in households with low income, compared with only 8% of those at the highest level of literacy. Also, 66% of those at the lowest scale were less likely to find work and, if they did work, earned less than $15,000.
SCAMS
According to the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, a scam involving bank trading instruments that don't exist has turned up on the Internet. Online investors are being asked to put their money into spurious programs and the Chamber says the scam has fleeced investors of tens of millions of dollars. A quick Internet search under "bank debenture trading" yielded three scams in the first page of hits. The International Chamber of Commerce may be reached at www.iccwbo.org.
CHOCOLATE
While the world's appetite for chocolate grows more voracious each year, cocoa farms around the globe are failing, under seige from fungal and viral diseases and insects. Researchers predict a shortfall in beans from the cacao tree, the raw material from which chocolate is made, within 5 to 10 years.
GROWTH
Of the top 100 on Profit Magazine's list of fastest growing Canadian companies, manufacturing companies account for 35. Next are business services with 22; software development, 12; distribution, 10; consumer services, nine; financial services, five; construction, four and retail, three. The top ranked company makes a quality-control device that uses computers and digital cameras to scan for manufacturing flaws on production lines. It reported sales of $30 million in 1997, an increase from $117,101 in 1992.
BILLS
At the end of 1997 there were $30-billion worth of bills in circulation in Canada. The twenty dollar bill is the most popular with about 444 million of them in circulation. But the twenty is getting some hot competition from much bigger notes-- $1,000 bills and, to a lesser extent, hundreds. Since 1990, the number of thousands in circulation has more than doubled while hundreds have increased 62 per cent. Theories regarding these increases include the underground economy, criminal activity and gambling.
PATENTS
A surge in U.S. patent applications could be an indication of future economic growth, recent research suggests. According to the Harvard Business School, the rate and pace of innovation is a very important thing to factor into growth expectations for the economy. Experts are studying the recent patent explosion and say that U.S. inventors in the decade from 1985 to 1995 pushed patent applications to highs of about 120,00 a year, an increase from the previous average of about 40,000 to 80,000 a year.
FOOD
Food industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States have said they will work together to eliminate trade barriers with food safety, environmental and labelling requirements. The newly formed North American Alliance will try to accelerate trade among the Nafta countries. Members are the Grocery Manufacturers of America, ConMexico and Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of Canada.
WOMEN
The Canadian government has created a new Web site designed specifically to help female exporters. The site, Businesswomen in Trade, offers electronic access to a variety of government resources as well as an on-line quiz to determine readiness for foreign markets. It also includes the success stories of experienced female exporters. The site is located at: www.infoexport.gc.ca. Of the 700,000 firms created in Canada between 1990 and 1995, 30 per cent are led by women.
VALUE
A survey of 1,030 North American companies, 346 of them in Canada, shows that most managers and employees don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to measuring performance. Just under half the workers surveyed said their current contributions are greater that their managers' assessments. Only 19 per cent of employees rate their performance lower than their manager does.
SPENDING
Because of allowances, jobs and family gifts, Canadians aged nine to 19 command around $10 billion in disposable annual income, an estimated $1.3 billion of it in B.C. The 15 to 19 age group spends the lion's share of that money, an average of $5,000 per individual against $600 per year for those between nine and 14. In terms of dollar volume, the older group spend their money on clothes and running shoes, CDs, magazines and candy and snacks while the younger ones spend theirs on clothes, cassettes and CDs, candy and food.
MESSAGES
U.S. office workers send and receive an average of 190 messages a day, and most of them get interrupted at least three times an hour by these communications according to a study by Pitney Bowes Inc. The study is based on a survey of 1,000 workers as well as face-to-face interviews. It tallied up 12 forms of communications from phone calls to letters to courier packages. Last year the average was 178 messages a day.
MOTIVATION
Forget workload and job security--skills development, competent management and rewards are the factors that keep people loyal according to a new U.S. study. Employees who plan to stick around for the next five years are generally satisfied with opportunities to learn new skills, the ability of top management and the recognition and respect they receive. The study involved 500,000 employees with 300 companies.
HORSES
Last year, 85,000 horses met their end in the four horsemeat packing plants left in the U.S. In 1996 these businesses shipped $64 million worth of horsemeat to Belgium, France, Switzerland and Mexico. The prime candidate for slaughter is a 10-12 year old well muscled quarter horse. The hind quarters are chilled and flown to Europe; the front quarters are minced and sent by boat. American exports of horsemeat for human consumption have fallen by more than a half in the past seven years. Studies and analysis of this industry are almost non-existent.
OWNERSHIP
Available from Statistics Canada, the Inter-Corporate Ownership Directory is a unique directory of "who owns what" in Canada and currently lists over 90,000 corporations. The data are presented in an easy-to-read tiered format, illustrating at a glance the hierarchy of subsidiaries within each corporate structure. The entries for each corporation provide both the country of control and the country of residence. Some findings of the Inter-Corporate Ownership Directory are: over 12,800 corporations, residing in Canada, are controlled by foreign interests; of the corporations under foreign ownership, American interests control over 6,700 corporations, British interests over 1,200, German interests over 910, Japanese interests over 560 and French interests 520.
HIGH-TECH
This industry had 1997 revenues of $7.6 billion in B.C and is growing at 22 per cent a year. It employs 57,000 workers and expects to add another 43,000 by 2000. However, there are big disparities when comparing the business climate of B.C. and Oregon. The average B.C. wage for high-tech employees was $40,627; for those in Oregon it was $43,700 (U.S.). In 1996, Oregon's revenue from the sector were $16 billion. Nearby Washington State employs 231,000 in the high-tech sector. Top executives in the industry claim the high-tech sector could be far more successful in B.C. if it weren't for high taxes, a critical shortage of talent and a lack of support from the government.
BIRDS
Television broadcasters and wireless telephone firms often build their towers on ridges and mountain tops where they act as a steel obstacle course for migrating birds which are often decapitated by the thin, taut guy wires on tall towers. A recent Wisconsin study shows that between 1957 and 1994, a single 1,000 foot tower caused the deaths of 121,560 birds representing 123 species.
THEFT
Entry-level workers in the restaurant industry admitted in a U.S. survey that they've stolen an average of $114 (U.S.) a year in cash and merchandise from their employers. 1,375 workers in 14 fast-food and full-service restaurants were surveyed. It also found that managers, while less likely to steal than hourly workers, said they took an average $80 a year.
METAL
Palladium is a precious metal used in car catalysts, dentistry, mobile phones and laptops, among other things. Recently, the price of palladium shot up by 10% to an 18-year high, making it more valuable than gold for the first time since the mid-1970s and dearer than platinum for the first time ever.
ODD
The oldest time machine in the world to suffer from the millennium bug has been found in a museum in Liverpool, England. The 400 year old instrument, which predicts the position of the planets, will stop working at the dawn of the new millennium, unable to accept the date of Jan. 1, 2000, like so many unadjusted computers around the world.
DIET
British doctors fear that health-conscious parents are starving their children by insisting on low-fat, low-sugar foods for them; as many as one in 20 young children now admitted to hospital are malnourished. According to The Independent, the so-called "muesli-belt malnutrition" has become an increasing problem for middle-class families over the past 15 years.
UNIONS
During the first half of 1997, an average of 3.5 million Canadians, or about a third of all employees, belonged to a union, according to data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). An additional 332,000 employees were not union members but were covered by collective bargaining agreements, and thus enjoyed union-negotiated privileges.
Union membership rose fairly steadily from 2.1 million in 1967 to a peak of 3.8 million in 1990 and has declined slowly since then.
FORGERIES
A trove of 100 Roman coins, found in Britain, shows that authorities were using counterfeit money to pay their soldiers. The coins are bronze but coated with silver. Actual coins from the reign of Claudius 1 are considered rare but forgeries even more so.
Thank you for reading the A & A Economic News Digest. For more information visit our website www.aacb.com or contact A & A Contract Customs Brokers Ltd. at strehler@aacb.com.
Past issues of the A&A Economic News Digest can be found at http://www.aacb.com/publications/ed/index.asp
In its latest report on the world economy, the Conference Board of Canada states that Asia's economic woes, which have already hurt Canadian exporters, will likely continue to the end of the year. The value of Canada's sales to Asia in the first quarter were down 33 per cent from a year earlier as a result of lower commodity prices and reduced export volumes. However, it is expected that the Asian economies will rebound in 1999. Those of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines should expand by 3 per cent, and Japan by 0.8 per cent. Canadian exporters are getting some help from the lower value of the Canadian dollar which makes goods cheaper.
LITERACY
Strong literacy skills are the key to success and to economic well-being in the information-based economy. Those with weak literacy abilities will find it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold in the labour market. Adult literacy is understood to be fundamental to the economic and competitive performance of industrialized nations. For an individual, the level of literacy skills he or she possesses can spell economic success or failure. Close to 50% of Canadian adults at the lowest level of literacy live in households with low income, compared with only 8% of those at the highest level of literacy. Also, 66% of those at the lowest scale were less likely to find work and, if they did work, earned less than $15,000.
SCAMS
According to the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, a scam involving bank trading instruments that don't exist has turned up on the Internet. Online investors are being asked to put their money into spurious programs and the Chamber says the scam has fleeced investors of tens of millions of dollars. A quick Internet search under "bank debenture trading" yielded three scams in the first page of hits. The International Chamber of Commerce may be reached at www.iccwbo.org.
CHOCOLATE
While the world's appetite for chocolate grows more voracious each year, cocoa farms around the globe are failing, under seige from fungal and viral diseases and insects. Researchers predict a shortfall in beans from the cacao tree, the raw material from which chocolate is made, within 5 to 10 years.
GROWTH
Of the top 100 on Profit Magazine's list of fastest growing Canadian companies, manufacturing companies account for 35. Next are business services with 22; software development, 12; distribution, 10; consumer services, nine; financial services, five; construction, four and retail, three. The top ranked company makes a quality-control device that uses computers and digital cameras to scan for manufacturing flaws on production lines. It reported sales of $30 million in 1997, an increase from $117,101 in 1992.
BILLS
At the end of 1997 there were $30-billion worth of bills in circulation in Canada. The twenty dollar bill is the most popular with about 444 million of them in circulation. But the twenty is getting some hot competition from much bigger notes-- $1,000 bills and, to a lesser extent, hundreds. Since 1990, the number of thousands in circulation has more than doubled while hundreds have increased 62 per cent. Theories regarding these increases include the underground economy, criminal activity and gambling.
PATENTS
A surge in U.S. patent applications could be an indication of future economic growth, recent research suggests. According to the Harvard Business School, the rate and pace of innovation is a very important thing to factor into growth expectations for the economy. Experts are studying the recent patent explosion and say that U.S. inventors in the decade from 1985 to 1995 pushed patent applications to highs of about 120,00 a year, an increase from the previous average of about 40,000 to 80,000 a year.
FOOD
Food industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States have said they will work together to eliminate trade barriers with food safety, environmental and labelling requirements. The newly formed North American Alliance will try to accelerate trade among the Nafta countries. Members are the Grocery Manufacturers of America, ConMexico and Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of Canada.
WOMEN
The Canadian government has created a new Web site designed specifically to help female exporters. The site, Businesswomen in Trade, offers electronic access to a variety of government resources as well as an on-line quiz to determine readiness for foreign markets. It also includes the success stories of experienced female exporters. The site is located at: www.infoexport.gc.ca. Of the 700,000 firms created in Canada between 1990 and 1995, 30 per cent are led by women.
VALUE
A survey of 1,030 North American companies, 346 of them in Canada, shows that most managers and employees don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to measuring performance. Just under half the workers surveyed said their current contributions are greater that their managers' assessments. Only 19 per cent of employees rate their performance lower than their manager does.
SPENDING
Because of allowances, jobs and family gifts, Canadians aged nine to 19 command around $10 billion in disposable annual income, an estimated $1.3 billion of it in B.C. The 15 to 19 age group spends the lion's share of that money, an average of $5,000 per individual against $600 per year for those between nine and 14. In terms of dollar volume, the older group spend their money on clothes and running shoes, CDs, magazines and candy and snacks while the younger ones spend theirs on clothes, cassettes and CDs, candy and food.
MESSAGES
U.S. office workers send and receive an average of 190 messages a day, and most of them get interrupted at least three times an hour by these communications according to a study by Pitney Bowes Inc. The study is based on a survey of 1,000 workers as well as face-to-face interviews. It tallied up 12 forms of communications from phone calls to letters to courier packages. Last year the average was 178 messages a day.
MOTIVATION
Forget workload and job security--skills development, competent management and rewards are the factors that keep people loyal according to a new U.S. study. Employees who plan to stick around for the next five years are generally satisfied with opportunities to learn new skills, the ability of top management and the recognition and respect they receive. The study involved 500,000 employees with 300 companies.
HORSES
Last year, 85,000 horses met their end in the four horsemeat packing plants left in the U.S. In 1996 these businesses shipped $64 million worth of horsemeat to Belgium, France, Switzerland and Mexico. The prime candidate for slaughter is a 10-12 year old well muscled quarter horse. The hind quarters are chilled and flown to Europe; the front quarters are minced and sent by boat. American exports of horsemeat for human consumption have fallen by more than a half in the past seven years. Studies and analysis of this industry are almost non-existent.
OWNERSHIP
Available from Statistics Canada, the Inter-Corporate Ownership Directory is a unique directory of "who owns what" in Canada and currently lists over 90,000 corporations. The data are presented in an easy-to-read tiered format, illustrating at a glance the hierarchy of subsidiaries within each corporate structure. The entries for each corporation provide both the country of control and the country of residence. Some findings of the Inter-Corporate Ownership Directory are: over 12,800 corporations, residing in Canada, are controlled by foreign interests; of the corporations under foreign ownership, American interests control over 6,700 corporations, British interests over 1,200, German interests over 910, Japanese interests over 560 and French interests 520.
HIGH-TECH
This industry had 1997 revenues of $7.6 billion in B.C and is growing at 22 per cent a year. It employs 57,000 workers and expects to add another 43,000 by 2000. However, there are big disparities when comparing the business climate of B.C. and Oregon. The average B.C. wage for high-tech employees was $40,627; for those in Oregon it was $43,700 (U.S.). In 1996, Oregon's revenue from the sector were $16 billion. Nearby Washington State employs 231,000 in the high-tech sector. Top executives in the industry claim the high-tech sector could be far more successful in B.C. if it weren't for high taxes, a critical shortage of talent and a lack of support from the government.
BIRDS
Television broadcasters and wireless telephone firms often build their towers on ridges and mountain tops where they act as a steel obstacle course for migrating birds which are often decapitated by the thin, taut guy wires on tall towers. A recent Wisconsin study shows that between 1957 and 1994, a single 1,000 foot tower caused the deaths of 121,560 birds representing 123 species.
THEFT
Entry-level workers in the restaurant industry admitted in a U.S. survey that they've stolen an average of $114 (U.S.) a year in cash and merchandise from their employers. 1,375 workers in 14 fast-food and full-service restaurants were surveyed. It also found that managers, while less likely to steal than hourly workers, said they took an average $80 a year.
METAL
Palladium is a precious metal used in car catalysts, dentistry, mobile phones and laptops, among other things. Recently, the price of palladium shot up by 10% to an 18-year high, making it more valuable than gold for the first time since the mid-1970s and dearer than platinum for the first time ever.
ODD
The oldest time machine in the world to suffer from the millennium bug has been found in a museum in Liverpool, England. The 400 year old instrument, which predicts the position of the planets, will stop working at the dawn of the new millennium, unable to accept the date of Jan. 1, 2000, like so many unadjusted computers around the world.
DIET
British doctors fear that health-conscious parents are starving their children by insisting on low-fat, low-sugar foods for them; as many as one in 20 young children now admitted to hospital are malnourished. According to The Independent, the so-called "muesli-belt malnutrition" has become an increasing problem for middle-class families over the past 15 years.
UNIONS
During the first half of 1997, an average of 3.5 million Canadians, or about a third of all employees, belonged to a union, according to data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). An additional 332,000 employees were not union members but were covered by collective bargaining agreements, and thus enjoyed union-negotiated privileges.
Union membership rose fairly steadily from 2.1 million in 1967 to a peak of 3.8 million in 1990 and has declined slowly since then.
FORGERIES
A trove of 100 Roman coins, found in Britain, shows that authorities were using counterfeit money to pay their soldiers. The coins are bronze but coated with silver. Actual coins from the reign of Claudius 1 are considered rare but forgeries even more so.
Thank you for reading the A & A Economic News Digest. For more information visit our website www.aacb.com or contact A & A Contract Customs Brokers Ltd. at strehler@aacb.com.
Past issues of the A&A Economic News Digest can be found at http://www.aacb.com/publications/ed/index.asp
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