Construction industry starts year with a bang

March 5, 2010
Winnipeg Free Press
Written by: Staff Writer

MANITOBA'S construction industry started the year with a bang, thanks to a big rebound in the number of residential building permits issued in January.

Manitoba municipalities issued $122.2 million worth of permits during the month, according to Statistics Canada figures issued Thursday. That was a 14.8 per cent improvement over the $106.5 million issued in the final month of 2009.

All of the gain was on the residential side of the construction industry, where the value of permits jumped by 20.2 per cent to $101 million from $84 million in December. The non-residential side saw a 5.5 per cent drop in permit values -- $21.3 million vs. $22.5 million.

It was the second consecutive monthly decline for non-residential permits. Building permits are considered an indicator of future construction activity.

The StatsCan figures show February's decline in non-residential permits was concentrated in the institutional (government) and industrial sectors, where values were down by 67.8 per cent and 38.6 per cent respectively. The commercial sector saw a 45 per cent increase.

Manitoba's overall increase was the third largest in the country behind Newfoundland and Labrador's 44.7 per cent and Nova Scotia's 19 per cent.

Canada, meanwhile, saw its monthly building permit total drop by 4.9 per cent to just under $5.7 billion from just under $6 billion in December. A major contributor was a 21 per cent decline in building intentions in the country's non-residential sector, StatsCan said.

Economists had called for a 0.8 per cent month-over-month gain in building permits. The value of residential building permits issued in Canada rose 4.1 per cent to $4 billion, almost twice the value registered in January 2009, and driven largely by a 7.2 per cent in intentions for single-family homes, the federal agency said.

Despite the month-over-month decline, January's national figures were still 32.7 per cent higher than in January 2009. Manitoba's was 14.5 per cent higher.

-- Staff / Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 5, 2010 B10