British Columbia Finance Minister Mike de Jong announced last June an agreement with the Pacific NorthWest LNG consortium to build a natural gas liquefaction and export terminal in Prince Rupert, a town located on the province's northwest coast. The investment is valued at $36 billion and at full capacity is expected to employ 4,500 people and bring $9 billion in revenue to the province's coffers…

The legalization of cannabis has opened up new business opportunities. In California alone, legal cannabis sales exceeded $1 billion last year ($1.1 billion to be precise), according to a recent CBS News study. Currently, with the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes in 23 states and the District of Columbia, entrepreneurs and companies are sniffing out business. Such is the case, for…

Total Canadian imports of machinery and technology referring to the 15 sectors covered by the Machines Italia project, increased by 14.7% in the first six months of 2015 compared to the same period of the previous year. Italy closed the first half of 2015 with an extremely positive result from the point of view of Canadian imports of capital goods, registering an increase of 21 percent (from €116…

According to the latest report from the Manufacturers' Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI), there will be a significant acceleration in the growth experienced by the U.S. manufacturing sector in 2016. Last June, MAPI released an update of its quarterly economic forecast, where it shows that real U.S. GDP is expected to expand by 2.5 percent in 2015 and 4.0 percent in 2016. "A number…

In the first 5 months of 2015, machinery imports, in the 15 "Machines Italia" sectors, grew by 26.2 percent, compared to the same period in 2014, with an aggregate value of €7,262 billion. The positive trend of Mexican machinery imports affects all sectors except metallurgy - foundry. In the January-May 2015 period, imports from Italy grew by 3.2 percent. Positive growth in imports from Italy…

Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Stratasys, a leading 3D printing company, recently released a report on the impact of 3D printing on the manufacturing industry. The paper is based on a survey of , engineers and managers working in advanced companies ("advanced manufacturing"), 40 percent of whom are employed by companies with more than $50 million in revenue. For this reason,…

ICE- Agency Toronto in collaboration with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and Canada's Ministry of Industry (Industry Canada) has completed a survey of the Italian presence in Canada. Starting with a database of approximately 200 Italian branches and 150 Italian direct investments, a questionnaire was drafted and submitted over the past 3 months to collect…

Sarong (www.sarong.it) is a world leader in the design and manufacture of machines, technologies and materials for thermoformed filling, sealing and packaging. The company operates in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics, and home and environmental product sectors. In North America, where Sarong has been present since 2012 with its own subsidiary located in Mississauga, north of Toronto (Canada…

Machines Italia Magazine is already in print, scheduled for release in october 2015. The magazine, now in its tenth edition, will be circulated this year through Society of Manufacturing Engineers - SME channels, both electronically and in print, to a list of about 60,000 managers, C-level, of North American companies in the trade association's databases. The magazine will also be distributed at…

"Reshoring" (i.e., relocation, the reverse process of offshoring) allows companies to take advantage of available incentives, use skilled labor and do innovation while protecting intellectual property. For some companies, being able to use gas at very low costs makes the United States far more "cost effective" than other countries where electricity and coal costs are considerably higher.…