Canada is Australia's 18th-largest merchandise trading partner (A$3.62 billion). In 2005, Australia's merchandise trade with Canada consisted of A$1.9bn in imports and A$1.8bn in exports. Around 2000 Australian businesses either export to or operate in Canada every year, with top performing exports including wine (A$255m), nickel ores (A$220m), medicaments (including veterinary; A$62m) and lamb, mutton and goat meat (A$45m). Companies exporting to Canada include food processors (Capilano Honey and Burns Philp); food retailers (Bakers Delight); consumer products retailers; packaging (Amcor); software (Mincom, Adacel and Keycorp); tourism (Wotif.com and Flight Centre); financial services and processing (Macquarie Infrastructure and Computershare); and mining (Ashton Mining and BHP Billiton).

Large Canadian investors in Australia include Placer Dome, Alcan, Nortel and McCain Foods. Other well known Canadian companies in Australia are Air Canada, Royal Bank of Canada and CAE.

Australia and Canada grant each other preferential tariff rates on a limited range of products agreed under the Canada-Australia Trade Agreement (CANATA), established in 1960 and amended in 1973. However, CANATA pre-dates the multilateral trading system and has been superseded by tariff reductions achieved by negotiation in the WTO.

Top 10 Canadian Imports from Australia - 2005

Top 10 Canadian Domestic Exports to Australia - 2005