Products with limited international supply for Canada

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, global supply chains are at the risk of major disruptions. This report provides a cursory analysis of products that have limited international supply for Canada. These products could be especially susceptible and may require extra attention from policy makers to ensure minimum operations and necessities.

In 2019, Canada imported nearly 10 thousand unique products at the 10-digit level under the Harmonized System (HS) classification. However, due to Canada’s unique trading relationship with the United States and the integrated supply chains between the two countries, the U.S. consistently showed up as one of, if not the largest supplier for these products. Out of products with multiple suppliers, the U.S. was the top supplier for over 5000 products and had import shares of more than 90% in nearly a quarter of them. The other dominant supplier for Canada was China, which was not only the largest supplier for nearly 2000 products, but also had over 90% import share in 120 of them. Other major suppliers include Germany, Italy, and Mexico, where each country was the top supplier for approximately 200 products.