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Ontario: Economy

Ontario is Canada's business and financial centre, generating some 40 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. Its manufacturing industries produce over 50 per cent of Canada's manufactured goods and 80 per cent of its manufactured exports.

Automobiles are Ontario's major manufacturing industry and most important export, employing more than 140,000 people and providing over 25 percent of Canada's total exports (1989). The mining industry, gold, nickel, copper, uranium and zinc play an important role in Ontario's economy.

Forestry also remains a key Ontario industry with the provincial government controlling over 85 percent of the forestland.

Toronto is the world's fourth-largest capital market; its stock exchange is North America's second-largest by volume and third-largest by value traded. Tourism is the province's third-largest industry.

Ontario is Canada's leading producer of poultry, eggs, vegetables, lamb, fruit, corn, tobacco, soybeans, nursery plants and flowers. It's also a major source of winter wheat, dairy products, hogs, and beef cattle. In 1998 about $5.3 billion worth of Ontario food products were exported to over 50 countries.