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What is the contribution of small businesses to Canada's exports?
Exporting is vital to Canada's economy and has accounted for close to 40 percent of GDP in recent years, with the exception of 2009 and 2010. In both years, exports of goods and services accounted for 30 percent of GDP, which could be explained by the global recession and the high value of the Canadian dollar. Exports can be a driver of economic growth and are strongly correlated with real GDP growth. Furthermore, exporting can provide a strategically important means of growing a firm by expanding its market beyond the confines of Canada's relatively small domestic market.
Table 14 shows the distribution of the value of exports by industry and size of firm in 2010. In 2010, the total value of merchandise exports by Canadian enterprises was approximately $326 billion.Footnote 11 This represents an increase of about $26 billion (9 percent) compared with 2009. In 2009, there was a reduction in the demand for Canadian goods and other effects of the global recession made 2009 a particularly difficult year for exports. Although the value of exports has not reached pre-recession levels, it did increase in 2010.
| Industry Grouping (NAICS) | Total Value1 ($ millions) |
Size of Business Enterprise - Number of Employees (Percent of Total) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total (all business sizes) |
Small (<100) |
Medium (100–499) |
Large (500+) |
||
|
Source: Statistics Canada, Exporter Register, 2010. |
|||||
| Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting | 2,922 | 0.9 | 75.4 | 15.4 | 9.1 |
| Mining, Oil and Gas Extraction/Utilities | A: 49,206 B: 52,844 |
15.7 | 4.1 | 6.6 | 89.3 |
| Construction | 1,871 | 0.6 | 84.3 | 13.5 | 2.2 |
| Manufacturing | A: 165,300 B: 174,154 |
52.7 | 11.5 | 23.1 | 65.4 |
| Wholesale Trade | 33,235 | 10.6 | 70.7 | 12.5 | 16.8 |
| Retail Trade | 2,197 | 0.7 | 80.5 | 2.2 | 17.3 |
| Transportation and Warehousing | 8,534 | 2.7 | 83.0 | 2.7 | 14.3 |
| Information and Cultural Industries | 570 | 0.2 | 55.0 | 35.8 | 9.2 |
| Finance and Insurance | 18,260 | 5.8 | 35.9 | 3.9 | 60.3 |
| Business Services | 26,710 | 8.5 | 35.3 | 13.1 | 51.6 |
| Other | 4,854 | 1.5 | 72.1 | 14.6 | 13.3 |
| Industry Aggregate Total | A: 313,658 B: 326,150 |
100.0 | 24.5 | 16.5 | 59.0 |
| Total Number of Firms | Small (<100) |
Medium (100–499) |
Large (500+) |
||
| All Industry Exports | A: 34,391 B: 36,185 |
86.1 | 10.6 | 3.4 | |
In 2010, about 86 percent of Canadian exporters were small businesses compared with 85 percent in 2008 and 87 percent in 1999. More importantly, small businesses were responsible for $77 billion (25 percent) of the total value of exports in 2010, with an average value of $3 million per firm.
Medium-sized businesses accounted for $52 billion (17 percent) of the total value of exports in 2010, with an average value of $14 million per firm. Large businesses accounted for $185 billion (59 percent) of the total value of exports, with an average value of $158 million per firm.
The proportion of small businesses that export (1.3 percent)Footnote 12 is lower than the proportion of small businesses in the overall economy (98 percent). There were about 30,000 small business exporters in 2010. In the same year, 19 percent of medium-sized businesses and 43 percent of large businesses exported.
In manufacturing, the largest exporting industry, small businesses contributed about 12 percent to total exports compared with 65 percent from large firms. In industries that accounted for a relatively small share of the total value of exports, small businesses made the largest contribution to exports. The largest contributions were in construction (84.3 percent), transportation and warehousing (83.0 percent) and retail trade (80.5 percent).
For more information on small business exports, please refer to Canadian Small Business Exporters, Special Edition: Key Small Business Statistics (June 2011).
Footnotes
- Footnote 11
-
The total value of exports in 2010 was about $326 billion. However, once the values are distributed by firm size and industry, about $12 billion of exports are classified as confidential. Therefore, the percentages presented in Table 14 are calculated using $313 billion as the total value of exports.
- Footnote 12
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Indeterminate firms are included in the count of small businesses. While the Exporter Register tracks only goods, according to Statistics Canada's Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises, which asks business owners to report their exports of goods and services, 9 percent of Canadian SMEs export.
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