Canadian Export Concentration Intelligence Tool
Concentration over time
Chart notes ▸
What's moved · year-over-year
Provincial ranking · —
Product ranking · —
Methodology
expand / collapse
Glossary
- HHI
- Herfindahl–Hirschman Index: sum of squared partner shares. Ranges 0–1; higher values mean greater concentration (less diversification).
- Equivalent partners
- 1 / HHI — the concentration-equivalent count of trading relationships, not a literal head-count.
- Raw HHI
- HHI computed from a single calendar month's export values. Volatile; influenced by individual shipments, seasonality, and commodity-price swings.
- 12-month moving average
- Average of the most recent 12 monthly raw HHI values. Smooths shipment-timing and seasonal noise to expose the underlying trend.
- YTD / Year-to-date
- Cumulative average from January through the latest available month of the current year. YTD % change compares that window to the identical period in the prior year.
- Ex-US / Excluding US
- HHI recomputed after dropping the United States from the partner set and renormalizing the remaining shares.
- NAPCS
- North American Product Classification System — the StatCan product category schema. Full category names appear in the filter; short labels appear in compact views (rankings, movers).
About this dashboard
As US trade policy shifts and Canada targets doubling its non-US exports over the next decade, near-real-time monitoring of export market concentration is essential. Statistics Canada publishes export market concentration data at the national and provincial levels, but only annually and without an industry breakdown. Annual aggregates are too slow and too coarse to monitor progress as it happens. This dashboard fills that gap: it replicates StatCan's concentration index methodology at a monthly frequency, disaggregated by province and product category, so analysts and policymakers can track shifts in near-real time.
Why export market concentration matters
High export market concentration increases vulnerability to tariffs, sanctions, recessions, geopolitical shocks, and commodity cycles. A small number of dominant trading relationships amplifies the policy and macroeconomic risk transmitted by any one of them. Low export market concentration, especially for trade-reliant economies, is better for economic resilience.
Lower concentration does not necessarily imply successful strategic diversification. Changes in HHI can reflect cyclical demand, commodity prices, FX movements, or temporary trade disruptions in addition to structural diversification.
What is HHI?
The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) measures concentration by summing the squared shares of each participant. Applied to trade, HHI = Σ(sharei)2, where sharei is partner country i's share of total exports for a given province and product category. An HHI of 1.0 means a single partner accounts for 100% of exports; an HHI near 0 indicates exports are evenly distributed across many partners. The effective number of trading partners shown in the dashboard is computed as 1 / HHI.
Data source
Statistics Canada, Table 12-10-0175-01: International merchandise trade by province, commodity, and principal trading partners (values in CAD x 1,000). StatCan publishes the underlying raw monthly trade data; this dashboard applies the HHI calculation, smoothing, and partner-view aggregations.
Concentration thresholds
- Low: HHI below 0.15
- Moderate: HHI from 0.15 to below 0.25
- High: HHI above 0.25
Raw monthly HHI vs the 12-month moving average
Monthly trade data is highly volatile — a single large shipment, seasonal pattern, or invoicing-timing artifact can swing the raw monthly HHI dramatically. The trend chart plots both: the raw monthly HHI (solid line) shows the latest actual movement, while the 12-month moving average (dashed line) suppresses month-to-month noise and surfaces the underlying trend. The Product detail table reports the YTD average HHI and the year-over-year percentage change for the current year-to-date window. The smoothing trade-off: recent shifts take roughly six months to fully reflect in the moving average.
Limitations
- This index measures the concentration of destinations, not of products or producing provinces. A province exporting one commodity to many partners reads as diversified by this measure; a province exporting many commodities to one partner does not.
- HHI is computed from export values. Commodity-price movements — particularly energy and metals — can shift the index independently of any change in physical trade diversification.
- Statistics Canada periodically revises back-data; the values shown reflect the most recent vintage retrieved.
TL Economic Intelligence. Canadian Export Concentration Intelligence Tool· HHI. https://tleconomicintel.com/hhi/
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