North Carolina
- 230,700 North Carolina jobs depend on trade with Canada
- 11,400 North Carolinians are employed by Canadian-owned businesses
- North Carolina sells more goods to Canada than to any other country in the world
- Total Canada–North Carolina goods trade: $9.7 billion
Medicago’s new facility uses tobacco plants to help grow vaccines
Medicago USA
Medicago USA is a subsidiary of Medicago Inc., a Québec-based company involved in the development of vaccines and therapeutic proteins in the fight against infectious diseases.
In 2010, Medicago USA won a $21 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to construct a facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.
Today, the facility, which opened in November 2011, has the capacity to produce 40 million doses of seasonal influenza vaccine or 120 million doses of pandemic influenza vaccine annually.
PotashCorp
Saskatchewan-based PotashCorp is the world’s largest producer of potash. The Aurora, NC plant employs 1,175 workers, who mine phosphate ore, refine it, and mix it with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid.
PotashCorp’s Aurora plant has contributed $201.8 million in local goods and services to the United Way campaign, the East Carolina Council of the Boy Scouts, the Aurora Fossil Museum and East Carolina University (ECU).
The company has also participated in cooperative partnerships and internships with NC State University, Virginia Tech, ECU and Northeastern University, as well as community colleges in Beaufort, Pitt, Pamlico and Craven Counties.
Magna International
Worth more than $1.2 billion in 2011, the transportation manufacturing sector is an important component in the North Carolina–Canada trade relationship. A driving force in that bustling trade is Ontario-based Magna International, the most diversified automotive supplier in the world. The company boasts 294 manufacturing operations and 87 product development, engineering, and sales centers in 26 countries.
Magna employs 143 local residents at its three operations in Western North Carolina. These plants produce parts ranging from body panels to outside mirrors, headliners and cargo trims. Magna’s supply chains extend across the Southeast region, throughout the United States, and globally to Europe and Asia.
For more information on North Carolina’s trade with Canada, please contact:
Consulate General of Canada
1175 Peachtree Street, N.E. • 100 Colony Square, Suite 1700 • Atlanta, GA 30361-6205
Phone: (404) 532-2000 • Fax: (404) 532-2050
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
North Carolina–Canada facts
Foreign export markets
- Largest export market: Canada
- % foreign-bound goods sold to Canada: 23%
North Carolina sells more goods to Canada than to the state’s next three largest foreign markets combined
Merchandise trade
- North Carolina exports to Canada: $6.3 billion
- North Carolina imports from Canada: $3.4 billion
- Bilateral trade: $9.7 billion
Jobs*
- # jobs that depend on trade with Canada: 230,700
- # employed by Canadian-owned businesses: 11,400
* Job numbers from trade (2010 data) and Canadian-owned businesses (2009 data) are from a 2012 study commissioned by the Government of Canada
Tourism
- North Carolina visits by Canadians: 1,010,500, $154 million spent
- North Carolina visits to Canada: 156,200, $102 million spent
Top exports
- Trucks: $310 million
- Pharmaceutical products: $244 million
- Optical, medical & precision instruments: $242 million
- Medicine, in dosage: $232 million
- Motor vehicle parts: $226 million
- Plastics & plastic articles: $224 million
- Rubber & rubber articles: $169 million
- Clothing: $167 million
- Engines & turbines: $162 million
- Furniture & bedding: $147 million
- Paper & paperboard: $140 million
- Computers: $120 million
- Telephones & AV recording equipment: $120 million
Top imports
- Plastics & plastic articles: $311 million
- Paper & paperboard: $281 million
- Organic chemicals: $194 million
- Medicine, in dosage: $179 million
- Softwood lumber: $150 million
- Coated textiles for industrial use: $95 million
- Salt, sulfur, earth & stone, lime & cement: $85 million
- Rubber & rubber articles: $84 million
- Tobacco products: $82 million
- Furniture & bedding: $77 million
- Inorganic chemicals: $73 million
- Wood & semi-finished wood products: $69 million
- Iron & steel tubes, pipes & sheets: $67 million
North Carolina exports $6.3 billion in goods to Canada
- Equipment & machinery (39%)
- Transportation (17%)
- Chemicals (10%)
- Minerals & metals (7%)
- Apparel & textiles (7%)
- Plastics & rubbers (6%)
- Other (15%)
North Carolina imports $3.4 billion in goods from Canada
- Chemicals (17%)
- Equipment & machinery (16%)
- Forest products (15%)
- Plastics & rubbers (12%)
- Minerals & metals (10%)
- Agriculture (10%)
- Other (20%)
