British Columbia - Economy

Economy

British Columbia has a resource dominated economy, centred on the forestry industry but also with increasing importance in mining. Employment in the resource sector has fallen steadily, and new jobs are mostly in the construction and retail/service sectors. With its film industry known as Hollywood North, the Vancouver region is the third-largest feature film production location in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City.

The economic history of British Columbia is replete with tales of dramatic upswings and downswings, and this boom and bust pattern has influenced the politics, culture and business climate of the province. Economic activity related to mining in particular has widely fluctuated with changes in commodity prices over time, with documented costs to community health.

British Columbia's GDP is the fourth largest in Canada at C$197.93 billion in 2008. GDP per capita stands at C$45,150. British Columbia’s total debt will rise 16% to C$47.8 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year, or 24.3% of GDP.

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Famous quotes containing the word economy:

    Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.
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    The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)