By RACHEL BOOMER 
The Daily News

Colin MacLean presents NovaKnowledge's annual report card on the state of Nova Scotia's knowledge economy. 
 
Nova Scotia’s progress at building a smart, innovative, export-based economy is just about average, think-tank NovaKnowledge concludes in its annual “report card” on the state of the knowledge economy.

“It’s a mixed response. We have elements that are doing relatively well, and we have elements that are stuck,” Colin MacLean, chairman of the report card committee, told a news conference yesterday.

“It is not a disadvantage to be in Nova Scotia, but there are improvements to be made.”

NovaKnowledge, a non-profit group made up of people who work in industry, government, and education, spent four months working on its annual report card.

Volunteers on the report card committee analyzed survey data, along with provincial government, education and Statistics Canada figures to come up with the conclusions released yesterday.

The good news, MacLean said, is that Nova Scotia companies are keeping up with the national average in adopting new technology, with spending in both instances about seven per cent of gross domestic product.

More than 40 per cent of Nova Scotians attended university in 1998-99, which is 10 per cent higher than the national average.

The average worker makes 18 per cent less here than the national average, but that’s slowly increasing, and our low cost of living may balance it out, MacLean said.

Investment in new businesses in the province is still growing, but was slower in 2000 than in 1999. Last year, at 23 per cent, venture capital growth was far slower than the national average of 132 per cent.

Still, MacLean said he was pleased to see venture capital continue to grow in Nova Scotia in 2000, given the state of the economy.

“I’d be surprised if it didn’t go down next year,” he said.

Adding to the bad news, MacLean said Nova Scotia’s productivity is lagging behind the national average, and our export rate was the lowest in the country in 1999.

“Despite the fact that we’ve increased our exports by 60 per cent, we’re still the last in Canada,” MacLean said.

“We’re not being exposed to some of the ideas and markets around the world that would help inject further ideas and knowledge into what we do.”

The non-profit group is hoping to help individual businesses by creating what it calls an “innovation scorecard,” which highlights the creativity, flexibility and attention to customer needs required for success.