Nova Scotia Economy Growing: Economist

Nova Scotia's economy is strong and getting stronger, says economist Fred Morley of the Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

Mr. Morley, a former economist with the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, was responding to a report by the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies that suggests Nova Scotia's economy is slipping behind that of New Brunswick.

"Comparisons of the two economies -- especially on narrow, selective criteria -- don't tell you anything useful," he said. "Our economies are different. New Brunswick is much more of a resource-based economy, while 70 per cent of Nova Scotia's economy is built around service industries. So shifts in such things as worldwide commodity prices or exchange rates affect the two economies differently.

"The simple fact of the matter is that Nova Scotia has been doing well by national standards. Our province had one of the strongest rates of growth in gross domestic product in the country last year, and that performance is expected to continue in 1999."

GDP is a measure of all of the goods and services sold in a given year and is one of the most widely used indicators of economic performance.

"Nova Scotia had the best rate of growth in full-time employment in all of Canada last year," added Mr. Morley. "We've also been at the front of the pack in terms of investment growth, both in 1997 and 98. And major projects like Sable offshore development are going to fuel strong continued growth into 2000 and beyond."

Virtually every leading Canadian economic organization -- including the Bank of Montreal, TD Bank and the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council -- is predicting strong growth for Nova Scotia's economy this year.

"We're not competing with New Brunswick; we're competing with the world," said Manning MacDonald, Minister of Economic Development and Tourism. "Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have different economies, complementary economies. That's one of the reasons we were working together on an Atlantic Canadian trade mission to New England this week."