A new study has found that the Canadian primary metals sector has the highest overall ranking among all industrial sectors for use and application of advanced technologies.
The study, titled Mining Innovation: An Overview of Canada’s Dynamic, Technologically Advanced Mining Industry, spans 15 years and was prepared by Ottawa-based Global Economics.
Among the report’s findings is that investment in technology largely accounts for the high rate of productivity. Since the mid-1980s, mining’s productivity has grown three times faster than Canada’s overall productivity growth.
“Mining productivity surpasses other industries in large part because we have transformed the industry into a high-technology sector,” says Gordon Peeling, president of the Mining Association of Canada, which commissioned the study.
But he cautions: “There is a danger that we will continue to miscast mining as an ‘old economy’ industry. We need to set this false notion aside and implement fiscal and policy decisions that stimulate innovation and the utilization of high technology by all sectors of the Canadian economy.”
Taxes on capital are cited as one of the chief hindrances to further productivity gains insofar as they are seen as punishing innovation by taxing investment. The study recommends that the Large Corporation Tax be eliminated and that the government extend the corporate tax reduction announced in the 2000 budget to the mining sector.
“Our industry has undergone massive change over the past 20 years,” says Peeling. “We invest heavily in the technologies needed to compete successfully in a fierce global market, and we employ thousands of people across the country.”
— The Mining Association of Canada is based in Ottawa.
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