Paul Martin's Business Update - July 2nd, 2014

Trying to sort out how the global economy is performing is not easy stuff. One day we hear good news, the next its bad and digesting the mountain of data to get a read on how the planet is functioning is not easy. As an exporting province, this is important… How our customers are doing will ultimately determine how we are doing.

One bit of information that came out last week provides an upbeat tone to the state of affairs among international consumers. New vehicle sales were up remarkably.

ScotiaBank called it a significant upturn, rising more than 4 per cent in May compared to a one per cent gain in April. Here in Canada, we kept pace with the world, setting a record for sale of new units at 1.8 million for the most recent 12 months.

In Saskatchewan the sales of new vehicles was 5,500 in April, ten percent higher than March.

Buying a new vehicle falls into the big ticket category and these figures are a proxy for long-term consumer confidence levels which appear to be quite robust.