The Centre has published a report on its program across Atlantic Canada to work with public-sector institutions to demonstrate leadership by expanding their community mandate to include the role of an economic engine. There could be a significant economic impact to our regional economies if more educational institutions, municipalities and other public sector anchors adopted a strategy for a small local shift in their procurement practices. This spending analysis forms the foundation for an institution’s local supplier interaction, and ultimately for building the local business base and economic health of communities in our region.

import replacement: local prosperity for rural Atlantic Canada

associated materials

Local Economic Resilience through Import Replacement

“Economic life develops by grace of innovating; it expands by grace of import-replacement.”—Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life

The Centre for Local Prosperity has released a report on an Atlantic Canada regional project studying the economics benefits of import replacement as an economic development strategy for communities within the region.  The report Import Replacement: Local Prosperity for Rural Atlantic Canada, is available on this page.

Import replacement is an economic tool designed to complement exporting, to provide a more balanced and integrated approach to local economic development and sustainability. A community (or region) focused on import replacement would seek to produce goods and services that are currently imported in order to keep money circulating in the region. By developing local production, it would increase its capacity to meet the economic, social, and cultural needs of the people of the region from within the region, not in a spirit of isolationism but in a spirit of self-determination.

Import replacement is not a substitution for exports, but a way of decreasing a region or community’s vulnerability to external pressures— a story the Atlantic Provinces know too well. Homegrown industries diversify and expand the local economy and they naturally begin to look toward regional, national, and global markets as they expand and grow. While the export model has dominated politics, public policy, and economic development discourse, this alternative complementary model has slowly been gaining recognition as ‘the other side of the coin’ – this complementary model is import replacement.

Import replacement can function as a strong incubator for exporting – as local capacity is built up through the successful displacement of imports, this naturally leads to exporting.  From a local economy’s point of view, an export is any good or service sold outside of that local economy.  Hence, a sale to a neighbouring community, region or economy constitutes an export – it does not necessarily have to be an international export.

The study conducted in-depth analysis of four communities in the Atlantic Region – Shelburne, NS; Miramichi, NB; Souris, PE and Burin Peninsula, NL.  Initial outcomes were presented at the Nov 3-6, 2016 Local Prosperity Miramichi conference.  A good link for background information on the concept of import replacement.

The Centre for Local Prosperity staff are available for presentations and workshops on import replacement.  Please contact: info@clp.myceliumdesign.ca.

Study release presentation of Import Replacement: Local Prosperity for Rural Atlantic Canada in Shelburne on February 26, 2018: