Regional Competitive Advantages

Northeast Alberta’s competitive advantage lies in its transportation systems, access to markets, large land resources, and cost of doing business:

Transportation/Access to Markets

The Northeast Alberta region is part of the Eastern Alberta Trade Corridor (EATC), which offers opportunity and direct access to incredible growth. The EATC is the northern portion of the Ports to Plains Corridor extending from the Gulf of Mexico through the heartland of the United States and meeting with the Wild Horse and Coutts/Sweetgrass Ports of Entry into Alberta and the Eastern Alberta Trade Corridor.

The EATC defines “Great Location” as it offers investors:

Available Land – The Northeast Alberta region, a major part of the EATC, has an abundance of land ready for commercial and industrial development, at a fraction of the cost of urban centers.
Safety – The EATC features well maintained, uncongested roads with access to all amenities.
Business Diversity – The energy sector in the Northeast Alberta region is thriving along with other sectors such as agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, and aerospace/defense.

Cost Advantage – Northeast Alberta’s access to markets reduce transportation costs and employees enjoy low living costs.

For complete details on the Eastern Alberta Trade Corridor, please visit www.easternalbertatradecorridor.com. The Northeast Alberta region is one to three hours proximity of the Edmonton region, having the second largest urban centre in Alberta. The major trade corridors include:

Highway 16 is a four lane divided highway running East-West, which is part of the Trans-Canada Highway system connecting to the ports of Prince Rupert and Vancouver in the province of British Columbia.
Northeast Alberta is part of the Eastern Alberta Trade Corridor, with Highways 41 and 36, major North-South corridors leading to the U.S. Ports of Entry, the Wild Horse Pass and Coutts/Sweetgrass.

Eight regional airports are located in the Alberta HUB. Canada’s two national rail carriers service the Northeast Alberta region, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway. Both carriers have inter modal yards in Edmonton and Calgary.

Large Land Resources

The Northeast Alberta region encompasses 40,872 kilometres and is approximately 6.4% of the area of the province of Alberta.
Billions of dollars are being invested in the oil and gas industry in the Northeast Alberta region due to the fact the region is located on one of the largest oil and gas reserves in Canada.
Northeast Alberta has a diverse agricultural sector focused on cattle, grain crops, bison and elk – with opportunity to specialize, diversify, and process. The Northeast Alberta region accounts for 15% of Alberta’s total production of oats and 12% of canola.
Northeast Alberta communities offer land for industrial, commercial and residential development.

Cost of Business

Northeast Alberta has one of the lowest overall tax systems in Canada.
No provincial sales tax.
No capital, payroll, or machinery and equipment taxes.
Competitive corporate tax rate of 27% (combined federal/provincial) for general business and 14%* (combined) for small business as of July 1, 2015.