Paul Martin's Business Update - July 18th, 2014

The big driver that has helped lift Saskatchewan’s economy from Have Not to Have status for the better part of a decade has been investment.

Capital spending on everything from infrastructure to mines, technology to new buildings has been a catalyst creating jobs and attracting people to the province. As a result we’ve seen our communities grow and incomes rise along with overall wealth.

So we track investment numbers closely to see if the catalyst is still in place.

New figures from StatsCan on one aspect of capital spending – money directed to non-residential construction – have just been released and we are holding our own.

Total spending in this category rose slightly in the second quarter of the year compared to the first three months and is about five per cent ahead of the pace we set last year. The one place that was soft was institutional construction – which is principally investment in government buildings – while spending on commercial and industrial – the private sector part of the equation – was up between ten and fifteen percentage over 2013 which was a strong year on its own.