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Talk about a Dynamic Duo- China and Brazil stock exchanges to link

 Shanghai Stock Exchange and Brazil's Bovespa to link


Bovespa is facing increased domestic competition
The Shanghai Stock Exchange and Brazil's BM&F Bovespa are due to sign an agreement on Monday that could lead to closer ties between the two. Bovespa said it was looking for cross-listing across both exchanges, although this would not happen immediately. The bourse, which is the world's fourth largest, is facing increased competition in its domestic market. The agreement is the latest in a series of tie-ups between the world's leading stock exchanges.

Bovespa said the objective of the deal was "to initiate a common discussion about business opportunities and exchange information". On Tuesday, NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse formally announced plans to merge, a deal that would create the world's largest stock exchange operator.
Earlier this month, the London Stock Exchange and TMX Group, which operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, also agreed a merger deal.
The established global exchanges see consolidation as a way to fend off increased competition from new platforms that have eaten into their trading volumes.

The CIA's assessment of the Canadian Economy

As an affluent, high-tech industrial society in the trillion-dollar class, Canada resembles the US in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and affluent living standards. Since World War II, the impressive growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. The 1989 US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (which includes Mexico) touched off a dramatic increase in trade and economic integration with the US, its principal trading partner. Canada enjoys a substantial trade surplus with the US, which absorbs nearly 80% of Canadian exports each year. Canada is the US's largest foreign supplier of energy, including oil, gas, uranium, and electric power. Given its great natural resources, skilled labor force, and modern capital plant, Canada enjoyed solid economic growth from 1993 through 2007. Buffeted by the global economic crisis, the economy dropped into a sharp recession in the final months of 2008, and Ottawa posted its first fiscal deficit in 2009 after 12 years of surplus. Canada's major banks, however, emerged from the financial crisis of 2008-09 among the strongest in the world, owing to the country's tradition of conservative lending practices and strong capitalization.


GDP (purchasing power parity):

$1.279 trillion (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 15

$1.312 trillion (2008 est.)

$1.305 trillion (2007 est.)

note: data are in 2009 US dollars

GDP (official exchange rate):
$1.336 trillion (2009 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
-2.5% (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 153
0.5% (2008 est.)
2.2% (2007 est.)


GDP - per capita (PPP):
$38,200 (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 27
$39,500 (2008 est.)
$39,600 (2007 est.)
note: data are in 2009 US dollars

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 2.3%
industry: 26.4%
services: 71.3% (2008 est.)

Labor force:
18.39 million (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 32

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 2%
manufacturing: 13%
construction: 6%
services: 76%
other: 3% (2006)

Unemployment rate:
8.3% (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 93
6.2% (2008 est.)

Population below poverty line:

10.8%; note - this figure is the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO), a calculation that results in higher figures than found in many comparable economies; Canada does not have an official poverty line (2005)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 2.6%
highest 10%: 24.8% (2000)

Distribution of family income - Gini index:
32.1 (2005)
country comparison to the world: 100
31.5 (1994)

Investment (gross fixed):
20.9% of GDP (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 80

Budget:

revenues: $521.6 billion

expenditures: $578.7 billion (2009 est.)



Public debt:

75.4% of GDP (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 18

64.9% of GDP (2008 est.)



Inflation rate (consumer prices):

0.3% (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 32

2.4% (2008 est.)



Central bank discount rate:

1.75% (31 December 2008)

country comparison to the world: 109

4.5% (31 December 2007)



Commercial bank prime lending rate:

4.73% (31 December 2008)

country comparison to the world: 137

6.1% (31 December 2007)



Stock of money:

$356.2 billion (31 December 2008)

country comparison to the world: 6

$391.6 billion (31 December 2007)



Stock of quasi money:

$1.299 trillion (31 December 2008)

country comparison to the world: 5

$1.381 trillion (31 December 2007)



Stock of domestic credit:

$2.335 trillion (31 December 2008)

country comparison to the world: 9

$2.382 trillion (31 December 2007)



Market value of publicly traded shares:

$NA (31 December 2009)

country comparison to the world: 10

$1.002 trillion (31 December 2008)

$2.187 trillion (31 December 2007)



Agriculture - products:

wheat, barley, oilseed, tobacco, fruits, vegetables; dairy products; forest products; fish



Industries:

transportation equipment, chemicals, processed and unprocessed minerals, food products, wood and paper products, fish products, petroleum and natural gas



Industrial production growth rate:

-13% (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 152



Electricity - production:

620.7 billion kWh (2007 est.)

country comparison to the world: 7



Electricity - consumption:

536.1 billion kWh (2007 est.)

country comparison to the world: 8



Electricity - exports:

55.73 billion kWh (2008 est.)



Electricity - imports:

23.5 billion kWh (2008 est.)



Oil - production:

3.289 million bbl/day (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 6



Oil - consumption:

2.151 million bbl/day (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 11



Oil - exports:

2.421 million bbl/day (2008 est.)

country comparison to the world: 4



Oil - imports:

1.165 million bbl/day (2008 est.)

country comparison to the world: 15



Oil - proved reserves:

178.1 billion bbl

country comparison to the world: 2

note: includes oil sands (1 January 2009 est.)



Natural gas - production:

161.3 billion cu m (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 4



Natural gas - consumption:

94.62 billion cu m (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 7



Natural gas - exports:

94.67 billion cu m (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 3



Natural gas - imports:

16.59 billion cu m (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 16



Natural gas - proved reserves:

1.64 trillion cu m (1 January 2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 21



Current account balance:

-$36.13 billion (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 186

$7.61 billion (2008 est.)



Exports:

$323.4 billion (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 11

$459.1 billion (2008 est.)



Exports - commodities:

motor vehicles and parts, industrial machinery, aircraft, telecommunications equipment; chemicals, plastics, fertilizers; wood pulp, timber, crude petroleum, natural gas, electricity, aluminum



Exports - partners:

US 75.02%, UK 3.37%, China 3.09% (2009)



Imports:

$327.2 billion (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 11

$415.2 billion (2008 est.)



Imports - commodities:

machinery and equipment, motor vehicles and parts, crude oil, chemicals, electricity, durable consumer goods



Imports - partners:

US 51.1%, China 10.88%, Mexico 4.56% (2009)



Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:

$54.36 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 28

$43.87 billion (31 December 2008 est.)



Debt - external:

$833.8 billion (30 June 2009)

country comparison to the world: 12

$781.1 billion (31 December 2008)



Stock of direct foreign investment - at home:

$494.6 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 9

$412.3 billion (31 December 2008 est.)



Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad:

$576.2 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 11

$520.4 billion (31 December 2008 est.)



Exchange rates:

Canadian dollars (CAD) per US dollar - 1.1548 (2009), 1.0364 (2008), 1.0724 (2007), 1.1334 (2006), 1.2118 (2005)

The World would love to be Canadian

Written by Joe Friesen Tuesday June 22, 2010 and copied from the Globe and Mail online


More than half of people around the world say they would abandon their homelands and move to Canada if they could.

Given the choice, 53 per cent of adults in the world's 24 leading economies said they would immigrate to Canada, according to an international survey commissioned by the Historica-Dominion Institute in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Aurea Foundation.

It's a startling finding, one that is reinforced by respondents' overwhelmingly positive attitudes about Canada's welcoming and tolerant treatment of newcomers. The results bode well for Canada's efforts to attract highly educated immigrants as the global search for talent heats up in coming years. “Canada is considered desirable for people all around the world. The shining city on the hill, as America was, and remains, for many people,” said Andrew Cohen, president of the Historica-Dominion Institute.
“Largely, it's because we welcome immigrants. We do not have anti-immigration parties in Canada. Almost every European country has one. We do not have a skinhead movement in Canada. So that speaks well of Canada and may point to our greatest success of the last 25 years, which is the manner in which we have continued to welcome immigrants.”

The tilt toward Canada is most pronounced in the emerging economies of the G20. More than three-quarters of those surveyed in China said they would prefer to live in Canada, followed by Mexico and India at close to 70 per cent. Slightly more than half of Britons, Italians and Russians said the same, while about four in 10 French and Germans would also choose Canada. Citizens of Japan and Sweden, followed by the United States and Australia, were the least interested in moving to Canada, with only one in five Swedes saying they would make the move.

Janice Stein, director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, said the survey suggests Canada can thrive in the looming global talent wars. “In terms of our economic future, our social future, our capacity to innovate, on all these dimensions that intelligent Canadians think about all the time, these are enormously encouraging data,” Prof. Stein said. “The developed world is getting old very quickly. … We are going to have to recruit globally as everybody else does.”

The reasons for Canada's relative attractiveness are clear: 86 per cent of respondents around the globe said Canada is a country where rights and freedoms are respected; 72 per cent said Canada is welcoming to immigrants; 79 per cent said Canadians are tolerant of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds; and 79 per cent said Canadians have one of the best qualities of life.

On most questions Canadians feel more strongly about their openness and tolerance than non-Canadians. Ninety-four per cent of Canadians say Canada is welcoming to immigrants, more than in any other country, but China and India, which have the largest diasporas in Canada, are not far behind.

“Of course we think we are [generous, open and tolerant,] Prof. Stein said. “Are we more vain than other publics? I doubt it.” Canada's reputation in some areas is even stronger than Canadian vanity. Citizens of five countries, South Africa, Australia, France, Indonesia and South Korea are all more likely than Canadians to describe Canada as a country where rights and freedoms are respected.

Citizens of 10 countries, including China, South Africa, France and Russia, are more likely than Canadians to say Canada is tolerant of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds.