Colorado
- 102,700 Colorado jobs depend on trade with Canada
- 9,900 Coloradans are employed by Canadian-owned businesses
- Colorado sells more goods to Canada than to any other country in the world
- Total Canada–Colorado goods trade: $5.4 billion
Colorado’s New Elk Mine provides coal for Cline Mining
A mining partnership
Toronto-based Cline Mining Corporation began production at its New Elk coal mine in Colorado in late December 2011.
Cline invested $65 million developing the project, which is Colorado’s first new coal mine in nearly a decade.
With an annual capacity of 3 million tons, the mine represents a turn-around for the state’s long-shrinking coal industry. Cline Mining will eventually employ more than 450 workers at the site, which should lead to the creation of numerous secondary jobs and a strengthening of the local tax base.
Alpine Access
Alpine Access is the world’s leading outsourcer of call-center services using home-based, virtual customer service agents. In March 2011, Alpine Access announced it will expand its call-center services into Canada by opening a new office in Calgary. Senior executives from Alpine Access project this market expansion will generate 600 new customer care positions in Canada. The company’s first international expansion is also expected to create 50 jobs in Denver to support its Canadian operations. The decision to expand into Canada by Alpine Access was finalized upon securing a multi-year contract with Canada’s largest wireless voice and data communications service provider.
Agricultural products
Agrium Inc., a Calgary-based supplier of agricultural products, nutrients and fertilizers has greatly expanded its operations in Colorado and the U.S. in recent years and in 2008, the company purchased Colorado-based UAP for $2.65 billion, one of the largest Canadian foreign direct investment transactions ever made in the state. Since the purchase, Agrium’s Colorado presence has grown through the relocation of the company’s Advanced Technologies unit to Loveland.
As a result of this investment, Agrium now employs more than 500 people in the state and ranks as one of the state’s top Canadian employers.
For more information on Colorado’s trade with Canada, please contact:
Consulate General of Canada
1625 Broadway, Suite 2600 • Denver, CO 80202
Phone: (303) 626-0640 • Fax: (303) 572-1158
August 2012
Unless otherwise mentioned, all figures are based on 2011 data in U.S. dollars (US$1.00=C$0.9891). Statistics Canada: tourism, based on combined same-day and overnight travel (5/2012 release); goods & services trade (2/2012 release). World Institute for Strategic Economic Research (WISER): Canada’s export ranking (2/2012 release). U.S. Census Bureau: trade (2/2012 release). Services trade data not available at a sub-national level. Figures may not add up due to rounding. Produced by the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C.
Supplemental content
Colorado–Canada facts
Foreign export markets
- Largest export market: Canada
- % foreign-bound goods sold to Canada: 21%
Colorado sells more goods to Canada than to the state’s next two largest foreign markets combined
Merchandise trade
- Colorado exports to Canada: $1.5 billion
- Colorado imports from Canada: $3.9 billion
- Bilateral trade: $5.4 billion
Jobs*
- # jobs that depend on trade with Canada: 102,700
- # employed by Canadian-owned businesses: 9,900
* Job numbers from trade (2010 data) and Canadian-owned businesses (2009 data) are from a 2012 study commissioned by the Government of Canada
Tourism
- Colorado visits by Canadians: 206,200, $105 million spent
- Colorado visits to Canada: 171,100, $119 million spent
Top exports
- Animal meats: $295 million
- Optical, medical & precision instruments: $201 million
- Iron & steel tubes, pipes & sheets: $100 million
- Natural gas & other gases: $51 million
- Plastics & plastic articles: $47 million
- Crude petroleum: $47 million
- Aircraft: $46 million
- Organic chemicals: $43 million
- Telephones & AV recording equipment: $27 million
- Televisions & parts: $26 million
- Aluminum & aluminum articles: $25 million
- Ceramics: $21 million
- Computers: $21 million
Top imports
- Crude petroleum: $2.6 billion
- Iron & steel tubes, pipes & sheets: $81 million
- Plastics & plastic articles: $73 million
- Optical, medical & precision instruments: $68 million
- Explosives & pyrotechnics: $64 million
- Furniture & bedding: $60 million
- Compressors & pumps: $52 million
- Wood & semi-finished wood products: $50 million
- Live animals: $48 million
- Paper & paperboard: $39 million
- Softwood lumber: $36 million
- Electric motors & generators: $30 million
- Animal meats: $27 million
Colorado exports $1.5 billion in goods to Canada
- Equipment & machinery (33%)
- Agriculture (24%)
- Minerals & metals (12%)
- Energy (7%)
- Transportation (7%)
- Chemicals (6%)
- Other (11%)
Colorado imports $3.9 billion in goods from Canada
- Energy (68%)
- Equipment & machinery (10%)
- Agriculture (4%)
- Forest products (3%)
- Minerals & metals (3%)
- Chemicals (3%)
- Other (9%)
