Vancouver had the third highest economic activity out of 25 Canadian cities in the third quarter of 2010, according to a report released Wednesday morning by CIBC World Markets Inc.
“Everybody said that after the Olympic Games, Vancouver would be in the basement," said CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal. “And that’s not the case.”
Scoring 19.4 on the CIBC Metropolitan Economic Activity Index – which factors in population and employment growth, the unemployment rate, full-time share in total employment, personal and business bankruptcy rates, housing starts, housing resales and non-residential building permits – Vancouver scored nearly twice the national average of 10.9
The Metro Monitor report, prepared by Tal, credits strong population growth and “an impressively strong” labour market for Vancouver’s performance.
“Vancouver was able to maintain its top ranking of number three for a long time,” Tal said, noting that the city has ranked between first and fifth for “a long time now.”
“That’s a very encouraging sign,” he said. “To me this is a reflection of a very diversified city and clearly a city that is linked to emerging markets in general, and China in particular.”
Only Montreal, at 26.8, and Toronto, at 25.0, outperformed Vancouver on the index. The index ranked Victoria sixteenth at 8.0.
The report credits a rebound in Canadian manufacturing in the country’s 25 largest cities with helping the cities regain all the economic ground – as measured by the index – they lost during the recession.
But Tal said manufacturing hasn’t played a significant role in Vancouver’s economic activity.
“Vancouver is a very diversified city,” he said. “Manufacturing is not a big story there compared to some small cities in Ontario for example or in Montreal. So the issue was not manufacturing in Vancouver, but I think that the spinovers coming from the global macroeconomic story and, if you wish, the manufacturing story in China is definitely helping Vancouver.”