However, globalisation and the opening up of markets in the region have weakened this constraint. Additionally, the creation of clusters of firms with similar activities can also help smaller companies benefit from economies of scale by cooperating in cost sharing, know-how transfer and specialisation of services and products. A second area which can contribute considerably to raising productivity is that of infrastructure.
For their part, Canadian oil exports are likely to be stronger than expected in April, following pipeline outages last year. Large upward revisions to oil exports in January suggest that oil exporters recovered much faster from these outages than suggested by earlier data.