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Behind The Store Front Prepared for the Retail Council of Canada in partnership with Industry Canada By Jacobson Consulting Inc. Recent Trends Retail GDP

One way to evaluate the performance of a sector is to look at its share of economic income produced. Economists define Gross Domestic Product as the value-added or the payments to the domestic factors of production for producing their output. This measure represents the contribution of each industry to the total value of production in the Canadian economy. The figure below (Figure 31) provides some summary statistics based on industry GDP. Although the Retail sector produced only 5.7% of value-added, its growth rate still exceeds the national average and was substantially above that of other key sectors. This indicates that Retail is increasing its contribution to the economy.

Industry Gross Domestic Product at Basic Prices

$ constant 1997 (millions)	2000	2004	Growth Rate	Share of Total
All industries	946,026	1,048,742	2.6%	100.0%
Manufacturing	179,564	181,254	0.2%	17.3%
Transportation and warehousing	45,765	50,230	2.4%	4.8%
Information and cultural industries	36,356	42,974	4.3%	4.1%
Wholesale trade	53,696	66,512	5.5%	6.3%
Retail trade	50,291	59,971	4.5%	5.7%
Finance and insurance, real estate and renting and leasing and management of companies and enterprises	181,064	209,916	3.8%	20.0%
Professional, scientific and technical services	41,462	46,620	3.0%	4.4%

Source: Statistics Canada, IMAD, July 2005

Figure 31 Industry Gross Domestic Product