Canadian mining sector has a great April: Statistics Canada

Canadian base metal and coal miners were the nation’s economic bright spot in April, according to report from Statistics Canada released on Thursday.

The study, which looked at gross domestic product by industry, found that mining grew strongly while the rest of the economy was mostly flat.

“Mining rose 1.0% in April, primarily on the strength of copper, nickel, lead and zinc mining. Coal mining also contributed to this growth. Support activities for mining oil and gas extraction continued to advance. Overall, oil and gas extraction was down 0.3%, as a reduction in natural gas production outweighed higher production of crude petroleum,” said the report.

The study found that retail trade, public sector and construction and utilities were partly up, while manufacturing, wholesale trade and the finance, insurance and real estate sector were all down. Motor vehicle production topped the decline which was down .7%, partly due to supply disruptions in Japan.

Gross domestic product is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country or sector within a given period.

Michael McCrae wrote this story. You can contact him at mmccrae@mining.com or on twitter at @michaelmccrae.