A4

Rob Linke
Telegraph-Journal

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OTTAWA - Atlantic Canada's economic development agency posted a significant drop in revenue last year but the economy wasn't entirely to blame.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency's revenue dropped $3 million or 21 per cent in 2008-09 to $11 million.

Only about one-quarter of that was due to the agency offering hard-pressed businesses a break on when or how much they had to repay their loans.

The rescheduling of loan repayments has gone up "a bit," said ACOA spokesman Richard Gauthier.

"Some of our commercial clients have felt the global economic slowdown."

The bulk of the drop was due to the trend of ACOA doing more funding of business organizations or otherwise supporting economic development, but offering proportionately less in direct loans to businesses. Between four and five per cent of loans were defaulted on, which was no change from what ACOA has seen for several years.

ACOA's actual spending in 2008-09 declined $30.2 million or eight per cent to $341 million. Spending the year previous had been higher mostly because $29.5 million flowed to a transitional fund for the Irving-owned former Saint John Shipyard in Saint John.

In fiscal 2008-09, which ended March 31, ACOA pumped $11.3 million more than it planned into the Community Development Program.

The money went to such things as training programs and new technology.

"This led to long-term employment and economic capacity building in rural communities," says the recently released departmental performance report.