APRIL 1996 Edition
EXPORTS
In 1995, Canada's exports to the U.S, our major trading
partner, increased 13 per cent to $202 billion. Recent figures show that sales
to the rest of the world increased 29 per cent to $52 billion. Exports to
Europe rose 42 per cent and sales to countries that are not part of the
25-member club of big industrialized nations increased 31 per cent. This
indicates that Canadian companies have become competitive enough to finally
begin penetrating the tougher foreign markets that lie beyond the U.S. and that
the painful restructuring that preoccupied Canadian companies in the early
1990s is paying off. In the final three months of the year, Canada ran its
first quarterly trade surplus with countries other than the U.S. since 1985.
The trade deficit with those countries in 1994 was over $11 billion.
INFORMATION
United States travel information offices in Toronto,
Montreal and Vancouver are in the process of closing down as the U.S. Travel
and Tourism Administration prepares to go out of business. The U.S. Congress
refused to allocate $12 million to keep the agency operating until an
industry-sponsored group could be formed to take over the tasks. The move makes
the U.S. the only industrialized country in the world without a government-run
office to promote tourism.
FORESTRY
The B.C. Premier wants the forest industry to create
21,000 more jobs in the province over the next five years. If they don't, the
government will move unilaterally to tie the companies' access to trees to the
employment they create. The B.C. industry has generated 15,000 additional jobs
over the past five years bringing the total to 107,000. However, it still
employs fewer people--1.4 jobs for each 1,000 cubic metres of wood
harvested--than its competitors in other areas. Employment rates range from
about 1.5 jobs for each 1,000 cubic metres in Sweden to more than six in
California where more manufacturing is done.
CULTURE
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians could become
"electronic Americans" because of a ruling by the Canadian
Radio-Television and Telecommunications
Commission making it expensive to set up Canadian satellite TV services. An
estimated 200,000 Canadian households already supply fake addresses in order to
receive signals from such U.S. satellite services as DirectTV. They receive up
to 150 channels on tiny RCA satellite dishes. The illicit trade draws about
$100 million a year out of the Canadian broadcasting system.
TV TUBES
Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. is closing Canada's only
television tube factory--throwing 575 people out of work. The Ontario plant has
been battered recently by increased competition, mainly from South Korea.
Mitsubishi bought the plant in 1983 for $20 million after RCA Inc. abandoned
it. They spent more than $100 million modernizing the operation, and was also
given $15 million in federal and provincial loans. For a few years, the plant
turned regular profits and generated about $160 million in annual sales from
the production of about one million cathode ray tubes a year, most of which
were sold to U.S. based television makers.
FASHION
In the 1980s, Chinese citizens gained access to
"status goods" such as television sets, stereos and washing machines,
now they are stepping into French fashions. China is anxious to project a new,
positive image of itself so the government has asked Pierre Cardin to design
uniforms for its public servants, including soldiers, and railway, airline and
post office workers.
SPORTS
When the world figure-skating championships were awarded
to Edmonton, Alberta, tickets for the 16,000 seat Edmonton Coliseum sold out in
42 hours a year ago. During the nine days of the championships, an estimated
$50 million was infused into the coffers of Edmonton businesses and the
organizers realized a profit of over $5 million of which $750,000 will be
funnelled into figure-skating clubs in Alberta.
CUBA
According to a study by Colby College in Maine, the last
time U.S. politicians tried to curtail Canadian trade with Cuba with
anti-Castro legislation, they were not very successful. Canadian exports to
Cuba have doubled to about $274 million a year in the four years since the U.S.
Congress extended its economic embargo to include Canadian subsidiaries of
U.S.-parent companies. The consequence of the law was to clear the field of
competition from subsidiaries so that wholly owned Canadian companies could
step in and do a booming business.
EUROCRACY
European bureaucrats have ruled that shellfish being
taken to market must be given regular rest periods and be immersed in water or
sprayed, to avoid injury, stress or suffering.
TRUCKING
Trucks carry close to 70 per cent of goods moving between
Canada and the U.S., despite the fact that no cabotage agreement exists
regulating the operation of trucking companies in cross-border operations.
Without a cabotage agreement, truckers can't cross the border and make
door-to-door pickups and deliveries, or move goods either inter- or intra-state
or province. Current practice calls for trucks moving to a border relay point
where the rig is turned over to a driver licensed in the other country. The
delays not only add to the transit time for shipments, but boost a shippers
transportation costs as well.
WORLD TOURISM
In 1995, international tourism receipts rose by seven per
cent to $372 billion, according to the World Tourism Organization. The Middle
East was the fastest growing region, thanks to a strong recovery of tourism in
Egypt. At the other extreme, tourist receipts in the Americas stagnated,
largely due to a decline in the number of Canadians and Mexicans travelling to
the United States. In the developing world, the biggest tourist earners are
China and Hong Kong. China's receipts have increased by an annual average of 30
per cent over the past five years. In 1995 however, South Korea's grew 50 per
cent.
LAUGHTER
It costs three per cent more to laugh this year than it
did in 1995 according to the Cost of Laughing Index. Rubber chickens, thrown at
hockey games, one of the components of the Index, rose to $66 a dozen from $60
a dozen last year. Other items include the newsstand price of Mad Magazine, up
28 per cent, and comedy club tickets at 10 clubs across the country which rose
1.7 per cent. The minimum price for writing a half-hour TV situation comedy
rose three per cent to $11,209 from $10,883. The price of Groucho glasses, at
$15 a dozen and arrows through the head, at $6 a dozen, remained the same
because they don't get thrown at hockey games. The index has been compiled for
10 years.
GROWTH
These are the benchmarks of the fastest-growing small
U.S. companies according to Inc. magazine:
* Average time spent on
market research before launching a company: 8.5 months.
* Percentage of founders
who started with a marketing plan: 45 per cent.
* Average time to make a
sale in 1990: 3.79 months.
* Average time to make a
sale in 1994: 3.78 months.
* Percentage of companies
that have their own sales forces: 58 per cent.
* Percentage of companies
that use independent reps: 8 per cent.
THE WORKPLACE
Employees at
Maplins, a British electronics company, start every Monday with a bingo game in
the cafeteria. Workers can win up to $100 depending on how many orders the
company won the week before.
OWNERSHIP
Women now own a third of U.S. businesses and have become
a major force in the economy. From 1987 up to 1992, sales and receipts of
women-owned companies increased 131 per cent to $643 billion (U.S.).
Women-owned companies totalled 6.4 million in 1992, employed 13.2 million
workers and had sales and receipts of $1.6 trillion, more than the gross
domestic product of all but a few countries.
JAPANESE LAW
Tough new consumer legislation in Japan is already having
an impact on B.C.'s tourism industry. Some Vancouver hoteliers fear they will
get involved in lawsuits filed in Japan--or have local payments withheld--if
tours don't go exactly as planned. Claims from disgruntled travellers can be as
high as 15 per cent of the cost of a package tour for complaints such as a
change of itinerary, or being bumped from one hotel to another, even if the
substitute hotel is of equal quality and just across the street. Even trivial
complaints, such as being assigned a room with a queen or king bed instead of
twins, which Japanese prefer, could result in a claim.
WINE
The European Wine Databank in Italy has used a technique
known as nuclear magnetic resonance to compile the characteristics of the
continent's thousands of wines. The technology allows them to verify an
individual wine right down to a particular hillside. Experts contend that 5 per
cent to ten per cent of wines have been tampered with and misrepresented.
EXERCISE
A British study of health and economic benefits of
vigorous exercise shows that, below the age of 45, people who partake are
costing the country's health service five times more in injuries than they save
in improved health. The leader of the study, from the University of Sheffield
who is under 45 and plays hockey and cricket, has had five strains, two broken
fingers, a dislocated shoulder and is on his fourth set of teeth.
WATER
Ninety-seven per cent of all water on earth is found in
the oceans. Nearly 58 per cent of U.S. imports come by sea. Nearly 180 million
people visited America's beaches last year. Saltwater fishing contributes
nearly $15 billion a year to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. U.S. ship
construction, commercial fishing, offshore oil and natural gas production
generate about $242 billion in annual revenues worldwide. And nearly 3.1
million pounds of garbage was collected from America's oceanfronts last year.
RESERVATIONS
U.S. restaurant owners are watching with interest an
experiment launched last summer by American Express. In 35 restaurants in 20
cities, patrons who make reservations and then fail to show up are charged $10
to $25. Of 10,000 reservations made so far, there have been only seven
no-shows. In a 1993 survey, many restaurants reported no-show rates of 10 to 40
per cent.
TRENDS
Dried pig ears, America's hippest canine snack, are
making dogs across the country sit up and beg. The supplier, Oink-Oink Inc. of
Detroit, has introduced spinoff products such as Fresh Vanilla and Cool Mint
pig ears for dogs with problem breath.
ONLY IN SWEDEN
Research in igloos will remain part of Swedish military
spending, despite plans to trim the defence budget. A military igloo can be as
large as a hanger and take a direct hit from artillery without collapsing.
On 40 occasions in 1992-94, the Swedish government heard
rotational movements at up to 200 rpm in coastal waters and assumed they were
submarine propellers. Researchers have since found that the noise is identical
to that made by mink furiously paddling their little feet.
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