The import content of exports

For example, the fibre that gets exported in the form of wooden furniture has provided value added in a number of BC industries – the furniture industry that actually exports the product, the sawmill industry that produces the lumber from which the furniture is made, and the logging industry that supplies raw logs to the sawmill. [...] The model can also be used to identify the imports used in the production of exports and to estimate their value, and that capability is what makes the BCIOM particularly useful for this study. [...] In many sectors the manufacturing component gets “credit” for most of the exports, but contributes only a smaller portion of the value added to the final products that are exported. [...] The reason for this is that from an economic perspective the resource itself is essentially free; the cost for these industries is in the extraction or utilization of the resource. [...] Notes 1. As for the previous table, the figures in Column 2 come from the BC Progress Board Report Table P13, the figures in Column 3 come from Table 4 of this report, and Column 4 is calculated from Columns 2 and 3. 2. The relative rank of each province is shown in parentheses in the above table.