BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Canada has a small, and largely high-end, bicycle manufacturing industry.
CBMA members include Groupe Procycle Inc., and Raleigh Canada Ltd., which along with now defunct company Victoria Precision, produced 707 000 bicycles in 2001. The total Canadian bicycle market in 2001 was approximately 1.49 million units with imports accounting for 53 percent. The Canadian bicycle manufacturing industry employs up to 700 people.
Anti-dumping measures against Chinese bikes have been in force since 1992 but now, as China attempts to convince the world it is operating a "market economy" the CBSA said on 2nd September that there’s no evidence to demonstrate that "pricing of the bicycles and frames is substantially controlled by the [Chinese] government."
However, the Canadian Bicycle Manufacturers Association fears that the CBSA decision to lift anti-dumping measures will lead to a "sudden and big increase" in imports of cheap Chinese bicycles, which will cause a "disastrous loss of hundreds of jobs."
Canadian bicycle companies have, in the recent past, benefitted from government subsidies.
Procycle’s Rocky Mountain, which was traditionally allowed to operate independently from the parent company, is now a low to top-end brand in Canada since two of Procycle’s volume-selling, low-end brands – Mikado and Oryx – were discontinued and their bikes branded as entry-level Rocky Mountain’s.
