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Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:43:45 PM
Foreign investment in Canadian securities rise
Foreign investors continued their interest in Canadian securities for a third consecutive month in January, according to data released by Statistics Canada Thursday.
Foreign investment rose 6.3% to $11.8 billion from $11.1 billion with purchases of debt instruments attracting the bulk of the inflow of funds.
Foreign investors pumped $10 billion into the Canadian bond market, with two-thirds of the amount invested in Canadian federal government bonds.
Canadian corporate bonds received the remainder of the inflow led by foreign acquisitions on the secondary market, largely investing in mortgage-backed securities.
Foreigners, however, disposed of $649 million of Canadian stocks in January, the second monthly divestment in the past year, contributing to a 5.5% decline in Canadian stock prices, the sharpest decline since February 2009.
StatsCan reported Canadian investors reduced their investments in foreign bonds to the tune of $5.6 billion, which is the largest divestment since October 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. The bulk of the sell-off was in U.S. government bonds.
Canadians also reduced their exposure to foreign stocks in January, selling off $647 million from their holdings, primarily in banking shares.
B.C. and Alberta to jointly host bobsleigh and skeleton World Cup
The World Cup of bobsleigh and skeleton will be the first international post-Olympic event at Whistler.
The province of B.C. and Alberta will jointly host the competition with the Whistler Sliding Centre hosting competition from November 22 to 25 and Calgary's Canada Olympic Park hosting from November 29 to December 5.
Both provinces will provide funding to support the two events on the 2010-2011 calendar for the international bobsleigh federation. The announcement is the first event that will make use of venues from the 1988 and 2010 Winter Olympic Games following the signing of a memorandum of understanding by both provinces last year.
Klaus Roth, head of strategy and Olympic tourism marketing for Travel Alberta, said in a recent BIV interview that there is a plan to invite more international winter events to both provinces to take advantage of Western Canada's Olympic facilities.
The move builds on what Alberta has done in recent years to attract World Cup events to Calgary in the lead up to the 2010 Games.
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