VANCOUVER – The BC Progress Board issued its 2007 Annual Benchmark Report today, reporting the status of indicators measuring the province's economy, innovation, education and social condition and continuing excellent performance in environmental and health indicators.

The Progress Board is now in its seventh annual reporting cycle, and tables its annual benchmark report each December.

Since the Progress Board was established in 2001, BC has maintained its first place rank in environmental quality and health outcomes. BC has maintained its third place rank in standard of living thanks to solid personal income gains. As well, BC has seen robust employment growth. Although the province earned a sixth place rank for economic growth in 2006, the general economic outlook remains strong.

The Board has noted troubles in the exports and productivity indicators, however. British Columbia's productivity has essentially been flat since 2001 and BC is losing ground in real exports per capita relative to other provinces and to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. And the Board continues to express interest and concern about crime rates and the prevalence of low income.

"Economic and social performance in British Columbia continues to improve across a range of indicators," Gerry Martin, chair of the BC Progress Board, said. "And we see continuing excellent performance on health and environmental measurements, where British Columbia is consistently number one."

"Further to our advisory reports last year on the social condition and crime, the Board will continue to closely scrutinize performance of these indicators," Martin said. "Although improvements on LICO (Statistics Canada's Low Income Cut-Offs) and crime rates have been better than average for two years now, we are concerned about their continuing poor relative performance."

"We are also concerned about weakening in some economic indicators, as evidenced this year in exports," Martin said. "And we will consider this further in coming Advisory Reports of the Board."

The Progress Board is now issuing web-based reports, which are available at: http://www.bcprogressboard.com/.