Canada’s oil-producing provinces have been ranked among the world’s top economic performers in a newly released think-tank report.

Each year, the Conference Board of Canada ranks 16 of the world’s richest countries in terms of economic performance, based on factors such as growth and employment rates. This year, however, the Canadian think-tank not only analyzed the country as a whole, but also broke down and compared the economies of the ten different provinces.

The findings were somewhat surprising, due to the disparity between those provinces whose economies are oil-based and those that are not. While overall Canada ranked fifth among the world’s richest countries, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland were ranked the top three jurisdictions in the world, when graded separately.

The top-rated economy was Alberta, which outperformed the top-rated country Norway by about $10,000 per capita on income. Ontario, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island all ranked in the middle of the group with countries like Germany and the United Kingdom. At the bottom of the pack were France, Belgium and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

“What this tells us is we have provinces outperforming the rest of the world, and we have provinces that are struggling along with the laggards in the Eurozone,” said Conference Board project director Brenda Lafleur.

The report predicts continued strength for the three oil-producing countries, and recommends that the lagging provinces work on productivity initiatives to boost their economic performances.

Canada’s overall fifth place ranking is an improvement after coming in sixth last year.

Source: Vancouver Sun