the share of mortgage in arrears 90 days or more continued to climb through 2011.

We have to remember that Korea is a very price sensitive market and the fact that there’s no plan for Canada to have a free trade agreement.

As some 300 million to 400 million people annually move from rural to urban China, the country becomes richer and people consume more, Abbott said, noting power consumption in 2010 of 3,248 terawatt hours should grow to 4,510 terawatt hours in 2015.

Perrin Beatty, chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former Conservative cabinet minister, warned Canada's dismal productivity rate, which he said is about 25 percent below that of the United States, was the biggest problem facing exporters.

The surplus narrowed in February, on lower exports of crude petroleum and cars, from a revised $382-million, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. Economists polled by Bloomberg had expected a surplus of $500-million.

Both imports and exports fell. Exports tumbled 4.9 per cent after four straight months of growth while imports slid 4 per cent.

Import volumes, meanwhile, fell 4.3 per cent while prices rose 0.2 per cent. Again, most of the drop was due to lower volumes in autos and energy. Exports to the United States fell 3.5 per cent after four months in a row of growth. Imports fell 6.1 per cent, leaving the surplus at $4.6-billion. Exports to countries other than the United States fell 8.5 per cent amid lower shipments of precious metals to the European Union. Energy exports fell 8 per cent, led by a drop in crude “reflecting higher inventories in the United States,” the agency said. That follows a 71-per-cent increase in crude exports from September to January.