But this year, his company, Reverie, began making some of its beds entirely in a factory in New York. Shipping costs from Taiwan have soared between 50 per cent and 60 per cent since the company was founded.

“Shipping costs are tremendous,” he says. “I could put that money into the manufacturing side in the U.S.”

Reverie is one of a growing number of small businesses that are chipping away at the decades-old trend of manufacturing overseas. They’re doing what’s known as reshoring, moving production back to U.S. factories as labour costs grow in countries like China and India and shipping also becomes more expensive. Over the last 20 years, the price of a barrel of oil has risen to about $95 from $20.

There are other issues encouraging the shift. Owners are tired of having to wait weeks for shipments on slow-moving container ships, and they want to get products to customers faster. Some newer businesses aren’t even considering overseas manufacturing. It’s not just small businesses. Some of the largest companies in the U.S. are also joining the trend. Apple Inc. and Caterpillar Inc. are among the manufacturers planning to bring production back to the U.S.

Reverie has had the bases of its beds made in Taiwan since the company was founded. Rawls-Meehan and a business partner in Taiwan agreed that the cost savings and proximity to many customers were good reasons to manufacture there.

“The mentality was that products were going to be manufactured more cheaply in Asia than in the U.S.,” Rawls-Meehan says.

But shipping costs have risen to as much as 20 per cent of the wholesale cost of a bed made in Asia. In 2004, it was just 10 per cent on some of Reverie’s products. So the company is now making a new line of upscale beds in Silver Creek, NY, near Buffalo. Shipping on those beds accounts for no more than five per cent of the wholesale price. That offsets the higher cost of labour in this country.

Rawls-Meehan is considering moving more of his manufacturing to the U.S., but because the company also sells beds to Asia and Australia, he says it likely will always have overseas production.

A good deal of U.S. manufacturing shifted to foreign shores in the 1990s and early 2000s. Workers in China, India and other countries earned far less than workers in U.S. factories. That lowered costs substantially for U.S. companies. Between 1997 and 2008, the U.S. lost nearly 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, according to the Census Bureau. And the amount of overseas manufacturing by U.S. companies grew 141 per cent between 1997 and 2010, according to the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

But the growing middle class in countries such as China and India have been demanding and getting higher wages. In Asia, labour costs are rising 20 per cent a year, compared to three per cent in the U.S., says David Simchi-Levi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose specialties include supply chain management.

A weaker dollar has also made foreign-made goods more expensive. A study by the consulting firm AlixPartners predicts that the costs of manufacturing in the U.S. and China on average would be equal in 2015. For products including disposable packaging and some metal parts, costs are already equal or less when they’re made in the U.S., the study found.

Reshoring began picking up momentum in 2010 after the recession and as the dollar began to lose value, says Lisa Ellram, a professor at Miami University of Ohio who specializes in supply chain management. Businesses that were unsure how strong their sales would be in a weak economy didn’t want to make as many commitments to far-flung factories.

“They really just didn’t have as much certainty about their volume and their needs, so it was maybe a little bit easier to deal with somebody closer,” she says.

Innovations in manufacturing in the U.S. are encouraging the shift. Many U.S. companies use robots and highly specialized processes that allow them to make custom components for the automotive and aerospace industries.

“Instead of hiring people, we’re using robots,” Ellram says. Chinese companies are also using robots, but U.S. manufacturers are ahead of them, she says.

The government doesn’t have figures tracking how much manufacturing companies are bringing back the U.S., according to Jeannine Aversa, a spokeswoman with the Bureau of Economic Analysis. About 50,000 manufacturing jobs came back to the U.S. between 2010 and 2012, many of them in factories that turn out electrical equipment and components and metal parts, according to the Reshoring Initiative, a non-profit group that advocates moving manufacturing back to the U.S.

The trend could gain momentum because demand for U.S. goods is growing. Ninety-five per cent of manufacturers surveyed last year said they are increasing their purchases from domestic companies, or keeping them at the same level as 2011, according to ThomasNet, a company that operates an online marketplace where businesses can connect with manufacturers, distributors and service companies.

The amount of time it takes to get goods made overseas is another reason manufacturing is coming back to the U.S. It’s taking longer to ship finished products because cargo ships have lowered their speed by 20 per cent to conserve fuel, Ellram says. That reduction adds four or five days to a container ship trip from China, she says. It takes two weeks or more for a ship to travel from China to the U.S., depending on which ports it departs from and where it makes its deliveries.

Shipping times matter for companies that need to get their goods to market quickly. Now that Cotton Babies, a manufacturer and retailer of baby merchandise, has moved manufacturing of its cotton diapers to Denver from Egypt, it has cut in half the time it takes to get them to market, says CEO Jennifer Labit.

Product development can be slowed by the distance between designers in the U.S. and manufacturers in other countries, Labit says. Communication takes longer and expensive overseas trips are often necessary to make sure that the products are being made to specifications.

Quality, and the ability to fix problems faster, gives small domestic manufacturers an advantage over foreign companies, Ellram says.

“Those are the things that (domestic) small businesses can use as a selling point,” she says.

A myriad of problems helped Reading Truck Body decide to bring manufacturing of truck parts back to the U.S. from China.

Shipments were disorganized. The company didn’t know until it opened containers which parts had been shipped. That meant it couldn’t be sure ahead of time which of its truck bodies could be finished and sold, national sales director Craig Bonham says. Reading, based in Reading, Pa., also was concerned about the amount of time it took to get shipments.

“It spans about three months from purchase order to the time you get products to North American shores,” Bonham says. “That timeline did not allow us to become reactionary to market demands.”

Reading lost some sales because it didn’t have the parts to finish a truck a customer wanted. But the impact of unpredictable shipments went beyond lost revenue—it also led to chaos on the production line and frustration among the company’s managers.

“You feel a larger sense of dependency when you’re relying on someone that far away,” Bonham says. The company received its last shipment from Asia in December.

It also dealt with high expenses to send two employees to China each quarter, at a cost of $100,000 a year.

But with production now entirely in the U.S., the company is more confident.

“We have more control of our destiny,” he says.

©The Canadian Press

The LEED certification program is a globally recognized process that uses common standards to define “green buildings.” Its goal is to support the design and construction of buildings that reduce or eliminate their impact on the environment and promote sustainable design and construction practices.

The ATC includes research and development, advanced design, vehicle engineering, powertrain engineering and telematics laboratories. The first phase opened in September 2011 and the second phase in November 2012.

The ATC has adopted a series of green building best practices and technologies that include:

• Interior and exterior lighting design to reduce light pollution
• Paving and roofing materials to reduce the heat island effect
• Water use design to save up to 30% of water used
• Optimizing energy usage with energy efficient strategies for glazing, lighting and HVAC
• Enhanced refrigerant material usage
• Use of recycled and regional material content for construction
• Increased building air ventilation
• Use of low-emitting materials such as adhesives, sealants, paints, coatings, and carpets
• Indoor chemical pollution control
• Controllability of lighting for energy savings

The GM International Operations and GM China Headquarters in Shanghai, which are adjacent to the ATC, were awarded LEED Gold Certification in December 2010. GM’s home in China was recognized for its high level of energy efficiency and environmentally friendly design and construction.

GM recycled or reused 2.5 million metric tons of waste – the equivalent of 38 million garbage bags – at its plants worldwide in 2011.

In China, GM has 10 landfill-free facilities. Seven are operated by Shanghai GM and three by SAIC-GM-Wuling. These facilities, which include stamping, assembly and casting operations, reuse, recycle or convert to energy all manufacturing waste from their daily operations. They are among GM’s 105 landfill-free facilities worldwide.

EDC’s Chief Economist, Peter Hall, predicts the province’s exports will grow by 4% in 2013 and 2% in 2014.

“This year’s gains come from a broad range of sources, and would be much stronger were it not for the closing of the Brunswick Mine after 50 years of production,” said Hall. “Next year, growth will be held back by flat energy exports. Take energy exports out of the equation, all other sectors are rising by a respectable 6% in 2014 on gains from forestry, agri-food and industrial goods.”

Energy accounts for a dominant 72% of New Brunswick’s international exports. Hall predicts that provincial exports in this sector will grow by 4% in 2013 before sliding towards zero growth in 2014.

“Energy exports will get some lift from a double-digit increase in natural gas prices this year,” said Hall. “Modest increases in LNG export volumes are included in our forecast, but with prices heading up, volumes could be stronger. Production of refined petroleum products should hold steady, getting a slight lift from a weaker Canadian dollar. A full year of production at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant could bring a significant increase in electricity exports.”

The forestry sector accounts for 10% of the province’s total international sales. EDC’s forecast predicts the sector to grow by 9% this year and another 8% in 2014.

“Wood product exports will receive a major boost from positive momentum in US housing, with starts expected to rise nearly 34% this year and another 24% in 2014,” said Hall, who is bullish on the US economy. “Some previously closed mills have reopened, but capacity constraints are likely to limit the province’s ability to take full advantage of stronger US demand. Unfortunately, the outlook for the rest of forestry isn’t as good, with modest declines expected for both newsprint and pulp this year and next.”

Closure of the Brunswick mine will weigh on the industrial goods forecast (6% of total exports), but hidden in the numbers is significant positive offset as production ramps up at the Sussex mine.

EDC’s forecast also noted that the US recovery that is taking shape will mean solid growth for the province’s machinery and equipment producers and agri-food sales through 2014.

New Brunswick’s exports to emerging markets account for 7% of the province’s total, unchanged from 2008. Brazil tops the list of emerging market destinations, followed by China, India and Turkey.

Nationally, Canadian merchandise exports are forecast to rise 8.6% in 2013 and 5 per cent in 2013, while economic growth (GDP) is expected to rise 2.2% this year and 1.9 next year. EDC is forecasting global growth of 3.6% in 2013 and 4.2% in 2014.

Click here to read EDC’s Global Export Forecast.

EDC’s semi-annual Global Export Forecast addresses the latest global export conditions including market- and sector-specific insights to help Canadian exporting companies grow their international and minimize risk. It also analyzes a range of risks for which exporters should be prepared.

The investments will support small- and medium-sized businesses in areas ranging from ocean technology and natural resources to life sciences and advanced manufacturing. RDC’s investment is more than $1.8 million in the 12 R&D projects and the total project costs are more than $4.9 million, co-funded by the participating companies and other partner organizations.

The RDC is a provincial crown corporation responsible for improving Newfoundland and Labrador’s research and development performance. RDC works with research and development stakeholders including business, academia and government agencies and departments to make strategic research and development related investments in people, research opportunities and infrastructure.

Some of the projects include:

ExtremeOcean Innovation Inc.
ExtremeOcean Innovation Inc. is a marine technology start-up company formed in 2010 and located in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. The aim of this project is to advance the development of a unique vessel for accessing offshore wind turbines known as the TranSPAR Craft (TranSPAR). The TranSPAR is a propelled spar marine vehicle. It was created due to a need defined by a consortium of energy companies through the UK-based Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator Access global design competition. RDC’s investment is $250,000 of a total project cost of $607,300.

eSonar Inc.
Based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, eSonar Inc. was incorporated in 2008 to service, develop, manufacture and market electronic and acoustic products for the marine and ocean technology markets. eSonar Inc. is using RDC funding to develop an integrated purse seining system that will transmit data to aid in the launching and retrieving of a purse seine to improve the purse seine fishing market by providing vessel captains with a monitoring system for launching and retrieving the seines. RDC’s investment is $250,000 of a total project cost of $445,713.

Kraken Sonar Systems Inc.

Kraken Sonar Systems Inc. is based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador as a developer, manufacturer and marketer of sonar devices for the deep sea commercial fisheries, defence and ocean sciences sectors. Through this project, the company has developed a program to create a bathymetric synthetic aperture scanning sonar product. This product would be deployed on unmanned underwater vehicles, as well as untethered and tethered towed bodies/equipment and could capture a higher resolution than the most advanced side scan sonars. DC and NSERC funding will enable the company to hire Dr. Jeremy Dillon as an industrial R&D fellow for two years. Dr. Dillon is a PhD graduate from Memorial University’s Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Faculty of Science. RDC’s investment is $60,000 of a total project cost of $155,000.

Click here for to view all the projects receiving RDC funding.

Among the big five banks, the Bank of Montreal (BMO), and Scotiabank were tied with the highest overall scores while CIBC received the lowest.

“Banks need to pay close attention to the report’s findings if they are serious about serving the small business market,” said CFIB vice president of research Doug Bruce. “Overall, credit unions do the best job of serving entrepreneurs, while Scotiabank and BMO are tied in receiving the highest overall scores among the big banks. CIBC is the worst big bank for small business – that’s the same as it was in 2010, when we issued our previous banking report.”

In addition to providing bank scores by size of business, CFIB’s Battle of the Banks includes a wealth of information including SME market shares of the banks, and policy recommendations. The bank scores are based upon nearly 13,000 survey responses from small business owners on four key issues: financing, fees, experience with account managers, and service.

Battle of the Banks shows a disturbing trend: the smaller the business, the lower the overall bank score.

Compared to larger businesses, smaller firms have a tougher time getting the financing they need from their bank.

The Fair Labour Association says Apple’s largest supplier, Foxconn, has made all recommended improvements to working conditions that were due by the end of December.

The group says there have been “notable increases” in workers’ participation in union committees. Foxconn has reduced working hours, though not enough to comply with the Chinese legal limit of 49 hours per week. Foxconn is scheduled to do that by July.

Foxconn is also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Apple joined the Fair Labor Association in January 2012.

©The Associated Press

As part of the 15th annual Gas Tax Honesty Day, the federation encourages citizens to lobby against charging tax-on-tax for gasoline and diesel.

Alberta director Derek Fildebrandt says even without a provincial sales tax, residents of the province pay roughly $80 million a year or $15 per fill-up.

Fildebrandt says citizens must also keep things from getting worse by keeping provinces and municipalities from continually looking to new or higher gas taxes as a quick fix for pet projects.

Check out the report here.

©The Canadian Press

The agency says in volume terms, wholesale sales were up 0.1% in March.

In March, four of seven subsectors reported gains, accounting for about two-thirds of wholesale sales.

Sales in the motor vehicle and parts subsector rose 2% to $8.5 billion in March, its second consecutive increase.

Wholesale sales rose in Ontario, Saskatchewan and BC.

The gains, though, were offset by drops in the other provinces, including a 3.5% sales decline in Alberta.

©The Canadian Press

Sales in the factory sector fell 0.3% to $49.5 billion following an upwardly revised 2.8% increase in February, as petroleum and coal products unexpectedly fell.

But analysts, who had predicted a 0.6% advance, said the bottom line was not as bad as it looked, noting that volumes, which directly affect gross domestic product, still increased by 0.2% and that the important auto sector posted a positive number on top of a heady gain in February.

As well, Statistics Canada introduced new methodological and timing adjustments in the month’s survey, which may have skewered the month-to-month comparison.

“It was a disappointment but it wasn’t a terrible report. I’d describe it as mixed,” said Jimmy Jean of Desjardins Capital Markets. “Overall, if we spread out (February and March), it’s still a pretty solid picture.”

David Madani, chief economist with Capital Economics in Toronto, said after incorporating the new manufacturing data, Canada’s GDP likely expanded between two and 2.5% in the first quarter of 2013. That would make the first two-plus growth rate in five quarters, and well ahead of the 0.6% increase in the final three months of 2012.

“Looking ahead, we expect to see further improvements … as the US economy continues to improve and the rise in exports translates into better manufacturing sales,” he predicted.

That improvement may not be seen in the immediate next few months, however. The drag from US government spending cuts, known as sequestration, that went into effect in March is expected to hit the American economy in the current second quarter.

The impact may already be showing up in the 2.2% fall-off in new orders signalled in the Canadian report, and in industrial production numbers released south of the border Wednesday morning showing a 0.5% drop in April.

“Given that Canadian manufacturers rely heavily on US demand, the slowdown that the American economy is expected to experience during the second quarter will be a headwind for the sector in the near term,” explained TD Bank economist Dina Ignjatovic in a note to clients. But she agreed the picture was brighter longer term.

The March breakdown for Canada showed sales declining in 10 of 21 industries, accounting for about one-third of manufacturing.

Sales of non-durable goods declined 0.8% to $24.4 billion and were partially offset by a 0.2% increase in sales of durable goods.

The biggest hit came from the important petroleum and coal products industry, which fell by 2.6%. Chemical manufacturing declined by 2%. Clothing sales plunged 17.8%, but they represent a tiny fragment of manufacturing.

On the flip side, sales of plastics and rubber products rose 3.7%, non-metallic minerals by two per cent and motor vehicles by 1.5%.

Sales fell in six provinces in March with most of the decreases reported by manufacturers in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.

Sales jumped 30.7% in Newfoundland and Labrador and there was very little change in the sales in other provinces.

©The Canadian Press

Harper, who was in Summerside, PEI, for a funding announcement, said it’s false to claim that the new rules the Conservative government have introduced are harming people who can only find work for part of the year.

“Let me be very clear in terms of any misinformation, there is nothing, absolutely nothing in our changes that targets seasonal industries or seasonal workers or requires anybody to leave their region to get a job,” he said. “We are simply making sure that when jobs are available that Islanders can fill them and when there is no work for Islanders in their region and they’ve paid into the fund, they will be eligible to receive.”

The changes have stoked protests in the region. Just two weeks ago, Atlantic Canada’s premiers asked Ottawa to suspend them, accusing the federal government of implementing the new measures without consultation.

The premiers, who span the political spectrum, said there should be further study of the new rules that took effect in January because they’re harming seasonal-based industries that serve as the bedrock for the region’s economy.

A spokesman for PEI’s Department of Innovation said the number of people employed goes up almost 19% between January and June, compared to the national average of 4.8% for the same time period. The increase is mostly due to seasonal work in the forestry, construction, fisheries and tourism sectors, Sandy Stewart said.

The premiers have agreed to study the effects of the changes and present interim findings to the annual meeting of Canada’s premiers in July. They plan to have the final results of their study complete by mid-fall.

Under some of the new rules, those who frequently claim EI need to prove they’re actively seeking work.

Workers must also accept a job within 100 kilometres of their home as long as they are qualified and the pay is at least 70% of their previous salary.

The federal government has estimated that changes to EI will save the public treasury $12.5 million this year and $33 million next year.

Harper said he realizes finding work can be challenging in Atlantic Canada, but added that his government is committed to stimulating job growth.

“We know that unemployment is still high in this region and that’s why we put specific emphasis on making sure we get investments in places like Atlantic Canada,” he said.

The announcement was part of a wider renewal of the Atlantic Innovation Fund, with a total of $39.9 million allotted for 17 projects across Atlantic Canada.

©The Canadian Press

Winnipeg-based Empire will own 51% of the joint venture, which will design and manufacture amusement rides for the Asian market.

Empire also fabricates steel for construction projects in Western Canada and China.

The Canadian junior company will provide an initial $2 million capital investment in the new venture and ZZG will provide 1.9 million.

In a related move, a ZZG subsidiary – Canada Zhoufa Agricultural Holding Company Ltd. – will invest a total of $4.25 million in Empire by purchasing equity and a $2-million convertible debenture through a private placement.

©The Canadian Press

TORONTO – The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) will invest $5.1 million into a nation-wide research project led by the mining industry and carried out by Canadian universities to develop new tools for remotely sensing and assessing mineral deposits.

The grant will match close to $7M in cash and in-kind contributions from sponsors in the Canadian mining and exploration industry, acting through the Canada Mining Innovation Council (CMIC).  The initial grant application to NSERC included 17 Canadian universities and 24 industry partners.  Since the project won official approval, the number of participating universities has grown to 24, while the number of industry partners has grown to 27.

GM expects the Chevrolet City Express, based on the Nissan NV200, to be available for sale in the fall of 2014.

“Our fleet customers have asked us for an entry in the commercial small van segment, so this addition to the Chevrolet portfolio will strengthen our position with fleets and our commercial customers,” said Ed Peper, US vice president of GM Fleet and Commercial Sales.

Nissan currently sells a version of the vehicle as the NV200 in numerous markets globally, including the US and Canada. The Nissan NV200 is a previous winner of the International Van of the Year Award. Cost of ownership for the vehicle is among the lowest in the class due to low running costs, the high efficiency of the engines and drivetrains and a safety structure that helps to minimize crash damage.

The first project aims to advance the development of aluminum heat exchangers, which are used to thermally manage electric-vehicle battery systems.  The grant focuses on improving fluxless aluminum brazing materials and process technology for manufacturing to increase process speeds, enhance cleanliness during production, and reduce overall cost.

The second project aims to address these challenges and improve battery system performance in low temperatures by developing and integrating thick-film electric surface heaters directly into the battery cooling heat exchanger.  For this project, Dana will collaborate with Datec Coatings, of Mississauga, Ontario.

Dana is a supplier of driveline, sealing, and thermal-management technologies that improve the efficiency and performance of passenger, commercial, and off-highway vehicles with both conventional and alternative-energy powertrains, based in Maumee, Ohio. The company employs more than 630 people at five locations across Ontario.

The work for these projects will be completed at Dana’s technology center in Oakville, Ontario.  Both projects are part of NRCan’s ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative (ecoEII) and are expected to last approximately three years.

The Detroit automaker, which formally opened the giant data storage centre in suburban Warren, Mich., this week, said the changes are examples of how it is moving faster to cut costs and serve its customers better by bringing more computer technology inside the company.

In the past, GM’s regional operations tracked problems by themselves, sometimes without communicating with other regions, even though many of its cars are now sold worldwide. Engineers in one region would check a problem part, but it wasn’t studied worldwide, at least not at the early stages.

Now, with new software developed by GM’s so-called innovation centres and the data storage, problems are spotted quickly when they crop up across the globe, and they’re assigned to the right engineer who can work with parts makers to fix the problem faster, said Randy Mott, the company’s chief information officer.

“You’d hope that if there is a problem with a set of components, that you understand which components were potentially susceptible and you would expect your recalls to be smaller,” Mott said. “You identify it earlier and you certainly limit it to only the ones affected by whatever the problem was.”

GM, which typically sells more than 9 million vehicles worldwide each year, makes cars and trucks in 30 different countries. Many of its parts are common worldwide, so if there is a recall, it can be large and costly. When problems are spotted and fixed early, the size and cost can be held down, Mott said.

GM also said it will build a duplicate data storage centre about 40 miles from Warren at its proving grounds in Milford, Mich. During the next two years, the company will close 23 data centres worldwide and consolidate them into the two new facilities. GM says data centres at Google and Facebook were benchmarked to draw up plans for the state-of-the art facilities. The Warren Center cost $130 million to build, while the Milford centre will cost $100 million. GM will spend another $158 million on each centre for equipment.

It’s all part of a push led by CEO and Chairman Dan Akerson, a former telecommunications executive, who believes it’s important for companies to have their own information technology rather than outsource it to other companies. GM had outsourced 85% of its software development and computer technology.

By consolidating the data centres and hiring about 9,000 people to staff four US “innovation centres,” the company hopes to bring 90% of the work in-house within five years, Mott said. Competitors, GM said, already have about 30% of their information technology work in-house.

GM, which began the data consolidation in the fall of 2011 and the software efforts last summer, isn’t sure how far it has moved toward the 90 per cent goal although it has hired 64% of the people needed to do it. GM already has added or moved 5,500 people into information technology at centres in Warren; Austin, Texas; Roswell, Ga.; and Chandler, Ariz. The centres all are near colleges that emphasize information technology, GM says.

GM, Akerson said, now has the ability to watch its factories for production and parts supply problems, and perform more accurate virtual crash tests, saving costs and speeding new products to market. In the past, when most computer technology was outsourced, GM couldn’t even monitor its own network of computers, he said.

The company can also use high-powered computers to analyze data across the globe to discover sales trends and potential new markets for its vehicles. The company said new crash-test simulations that were made possible by the data centres are cutting down on the number of physical crash tests that are needed. That saves the company roughly $350,000 per test, GM said.

Even though GM is taking on the added capital investment and personnel costs, Mott said it will save money by eliminating the cost of paying outside computer technology vendors.

Bringing computer functions into the company can make it more agile, but there are risks as well, including hiring and keeping people who have many job choices, said Bryan Britz, a vice-president with Gartner Inc., a firm that advises companies on information technology issues.

Most companies that outsource computer functions continue to do so and don’t try to build them from inside, he said. But he also said GM is large enough to build and maintain a talent pool.

“It really does come down to execution,” he said. “That has proven to be, for a lot of organizations, a barrier too big.”

GM also needs to make sure that it uses the remaining outsourced work to bring innovation from outside, he said.

©The Canadian Press

It’s the first project to receive funding under a restructured National Research Council, which earlier this week announced it would focus on technologies that can help businesses, rather than on more general scientific endeavours.

Ottawa is pitching in $9.5 million to build the plant at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s Primrose South oilsands project near Bonnyville, Alta.

Canadian Natural, one of Canada’s biggest energy companies, will contribute $6.3 million and Toronto-based Pond Biofuels will shoulder the remainder.

Pond’s technology essentially feeds carbon dioxide emissions from smoke stacks – whether it’s at an oilsands site, coal plant or factory – to algae.

Waste heat and water from Canadian Natural’s operations will also be used to help the algae grow.

As it blossoms, the algae develops fat – in other words, oil, said Joy Romero, vice-president of technology development at Canadian Natural.

That oil can be blended with heavy bitumen to make it flow more easily through pipelines, or sold to refiners, who can turn it into diesel or gasoline. The company says the oil is of the same, if not better, quality as West Texas Intermediate, the key US light oil benchmark.

The material left behind once the oil has been stripped out can be used as a fertilizer, which Canadian Natural needs as it looks to return used up oilsands mines to their natural state.

John Parr, Canadian Natural’s vice-president of thermal projects, added that the biomass is high in protein and carbohydrates, making it a “perfect” animal feed.

“Certainly Alberta is cattle country, so there would be a great market there for it I think as well.”

The algae technology could reduce emissions by 15% at Canadian Natural’s massive 110,000-barrel-per-day Horizon oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray and by 30% at its steam-driven Primrose operations.

Canadian Natural president Steve Laut said the algae technology will be shared with the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, a group of 12 oilsands companies that share environmentally friendly technologies without intellectual property concerns getting in the way.

He said pursuing such a project would be “very difficult” without government support.

“To say this would have happened without them is naive,” he said. “We needed the NRC to get that base technology to where we are today. Pond Biofuels brings an important part of it and we’re here to make the commercialization and the implementation of it go.”

©The Canadian Press

The new figures offered some good news for Asia’s third-largest economy amid worries over stalling economic growth.

The country’s statistics office said Friday that March industrial output was 2.5% higher than a year earlier. It grew 0.6% in February.

Manufacturing growth of 3.2% led the improvement.

But growth in industrial production for India’s fiscal year that ended March 31 was just 1%, reflecting the broader economic slowdown.

The government has forecast economic growth of 5% for the fiscal year, the lowest in a decade.

©The Canadian Press

The Ontario-company Magna said net profits attributable to shareholders rose to US$369 million, up from US$343 million.

Revenue improved to US$8.36 billion, up from US$7.67 billion in the same 2012 period.

In its earnings release, Magna noted the 9% increase in revenue came amid a meagre 1% increase in vehicle production in North America and a 9% decrease in Europe.

“Our North American, European and rest of world production sales, as well as tooling, engineering and other sales all increased in the first quarter of 2013 relative to the comparable quarter in 2012,” it said.

Complete vehicle assembly sales increased 33% to US$798 million for the first quarter of 2013 compared with US$599 million for the first quarter of 2012, while complete vehicle assembly volumes increased 25% to about 37,000 units.

Magna has 315 manufacturing operations and 87 product development, engineering and sales centres in 29 countries and employees some 121,000 workers.

©The Canadian Press

The modest positive was about what was expected by analysts after March’s massive 54,500 contraction.

The report was better in the details as there were 36,000 full- time workers added in the month, although most of those were in the public sector.

The month saw a loss of 23,600 part-time jobs.

The biggest gains came in the factory sector, which saw a pick-up of 21,000 workers.

Alberta had the largest gain among provinces, up 15,000.

©The Canadian Press

The partnership will enable further development of new accelerators in Boston, New York City, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

“This partnership will help some of the most promising Canadian companies access new clients and investors in the US and abroad, which will result in a strengthening of our venture capital ecosystem as a whole,” says Jean-René Halde, president of BDC. “The intent is that this translates into greater and faster growth of new Canadian companies that are more competitive and improve long-term economic prospects for the whole country.”

The Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) program was launched in 2009 by DFAIT’s Trade Commissioner Service. Similarly to privately-run accelerators in Canada, DFAIT’s CTAs in the US host selected Canadian technology SMEs for a number of months, providing them with office space free of charge, mentoring and networking opportunities as well as introductions to key players in the local business and tech communities.

The program is delivered in collaboration with local partner facilities such as RocketSpace, Plug and Play, General Assembly, QB3 and Cambridge Innovation Centre, among others. Canadian entrepreneurs are provided with the opportunity to pitch their product to potential US clients, strategic partners and financiers. The CTAs cover the high tech sectors of IT, life sciences, gaming, clean tech and healthcare.