Planned manufacturing projects in U.S. and Canada up 40 per cent in 2015

Sugar Land, TX—North American manufacturers are being significantly freer with their investment dollars in 2015 than they were a year ago.

The value of projects in the industrial manufacturing industry that are planned to kick off this year in the U.S. and Canada is up 39.7 per cent from the same period last year, according to Industrial Info Resource’s North American Project Spending Index.

While companies broke ground on US$36.2 billion worth of projects in the first half of 2014, the January-July figure has risen to $50.6 billion in 2015.

While the biggest gains are being realized in the eastern, southeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S., spending has increased in Ontario and Western Canada as well. According to the report, Ontario new project value has reached $1.7 billion so far this year, while over the first half of 2014 it saw just over $1 billion in spending. Likewise, manufacturing construction starts have increased to $1.5 billion in western Canada, compared to only $339 million in 2014.

Figures for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, however, have slipped. Investment in Quebec reached $284 million in 2014, while the province has pulled in only $162 million so far in 2015. Atlantic Canada attracted $80 in the January-July period of 2014, but has added just $7 million so far this year.