Carney Unveils $18B Gov't-Owned Fund   04/28 06:12

   

   TORONTO (AP) -- Canada is developing a government-owned investment fund, 
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday.

   Carney said that the fund would invest in major Canadian industrial 
projects, in areas such as energy, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and 
technology. It will begin at 25 billion Canadian dollars ($18 billion).

   The prime minister said that the federal government will provide funds 
alongside private investors. The money will help finance projects that Carney's 
government is focused on building, as Canada seeks to diversify away from the 
United States.

   U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening Canada's economy and 
sovereignty with tariffs, most offensively by claiming Canada could become the 
51st U.S. state.

   "Many of our former strengths built on our close ties to the United States 
have become our weaknesses," Carney said. "The U.S. has changed. That's their 
right and we are responding. That is our imperative."

   Carney is a former two-time central banker in England and Canada, as well as 
ex-chair of Bloomberg's board of directors.

   "We take a lesson from other jurisdictions that had the foresight many 
decades ago to start sovereign wealth funds," Carney said, "In some cases, they 
began with a domestic focus, then outgrew the scale of the domestic focus."

   Sovereign wealth funds invest in assets such as stocks, bonds and real 
estate. They are typically funded by a country's budgetary surplus, which 
Canada currently doesn't have. The announcement came a day before Carney's 
government is due to announce its spring economic update.

   There are more than 90 sovereign wealth funds around the world that manage 
more than $8 trillion in assets, according to The International Forum of 
Sovereign Wealth Funds, a London-based organization made up of roughly 50 of 
these entities.

   Trump ordered the creation of U.S. sovereign wealth fund last year. In the 
U.S., more than 20 sovereign wealth funds exist at the state level, according 
to an analysis by the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based 
nonpartisan think tank.