Five Port of Vancouver Projects Receive Government Funding

Canada's Minister for Transport Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport has announced an investment of $102 million for five projects that will increase efficiency at the Port of Vancouver.

The projects are:

• $42.7 million to consolidate the operations of the Annacis Auto Terminal and the Richmond Terminal to accommodate the growing Asian automobile market and improve rail operations in the area.
• $12.2 million to improve road and rail traffic operations and develop new rail-serviced bulk export marine terminals within the Fraser Surrey Port Lands.
• $39.4 million to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion in the Portside/Blundell corridor in Richmond.
• $1.6 million to explore ways to handle increased trade volumes by evaluating the viability of short sea shipping in Greater Vancouver.
• $6 million to develop a real-time dashboard for the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert to measure end-to-end performance of the supply chain for all cargo moving through both ports.

Canada’s western ports exported approximately $55 billion of goods in 2018. The Port of Vancouver is Canada’s largest port by volume and the third largest in North America. It handled 147.1 million tons of cargo handled in 2018 (2.8 million tons per week). The Port of Vancouver moves many of Canada’s key export commodities including coal, grain, forest products, chemical, metals and minerals and fertilizers.

“Our government is investing in Canada’s economy by making improvements to our trade and transportation corridors,” said Garneau. “We are supporting projects to efficiently move goods to market and people to their destinations, stimulate economic growth, create quality middle-class jobs and ensure that Canada’s transportation networks remain competitive and efficient.”

While the United States continues to be Canada’s top trade partner with $741.4 billion in trade ($437.6 billion exported, $303.8 billion imported) in 2018, trade is growing with international markets. From 2015 to 2018, trade with Asia (excluding the Middle East) grew by 18.9 percent to $199.2 billion and trade with the European Union grew by 19 percent since 2015 to $118.1 billion in 2018.

Through the Investing in Canada infrastructure plan, the Government of Canada is investing more than $180 billion over 12 years in public transit projects, green infrastructure, social infrastructure, trade and transportation routes, and Canada’s rural and northern communities.