{"id":81625,"date":"2021-05-26T10:26:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T10:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resourcework2.devstudio.work\/?p=81625"},"modified":"2024-11-11T17:18:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T17:18:12","slug":"economic-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resourcework2.devstudio.work\/?p=81625","title":{"rendered":"Natural resources are more than 50% of BC’s economic base. Surprised?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A population of 5 million could not efficiently produce all the products that are standard features of a modern standard of living \u2013 computers, smart phones, automobiles, medical imaging equipment, a wide range of books, movies and music, fresh year-round foods and more. There are also experiences \u2013 such as international travel \u2013 that would be impossible under a self-sufficiency model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British Columbia\u2019s standard of living depends on the value of the goods and services we sell to people and businesses living outside our province. Exports bring dollars into British Columbia that form the \u201ceconomic base\u201d of our province, and those dollars circulate through the economy as businesses and citizens purchase services from each other. Money flows back out of the province to purchase goods and services that we cannot efficiently produce for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An economic base represents the dollars brought into the economy through the export of goods and services. Defining the major components of our economic base is important, because changes in the competitive health of any sector will have different impacts on our society depending on how much of our economic base that sector represents. This chart illustrates that B.C.\u2019s international goods exports are still heavily weighted to our natural resource sectors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2018, 74 percent of international goods exports were natural resource based. Exports of goods to other provinces would follow a similar pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attributing service exports by sector is more difficult. Some services exports \u2013 such as money spent by out-of-province tourists \u2013 is easily assigned to the tourism sector. Other services \u2013 such as the transportation, financial, insurance, legal and other professional services purchased to support the manufacturing of exported B.C. goods \u2013 need to be assigned to the goods-producing sector they support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is achieved using data from BC Stats\u2019 Input-Output model, with some assumptions about how to assign values among the major sectors. On that basis, our best estimate of the relative size of the major components of B.C.\u2019s economic base is provided in the following pie chart:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The data illustrates several key points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n