GROWING PROVINCE LEADS TO MORE DEMAND FOR CROWN CORPORATION SERVICES

There are 36,000 more registered vehicles in Saskatchewan, 5,000 more SaskEnergy customers and 7,500 more SaskPower customers than a year ago according to year-end figures released today. Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff says that is a result of a great provincial economy.

"Saskatchewan's positive momentum and economic growth resulted in record numbers of vehicles being registered and thousands of new hookups for power and natural gas throughout the province," Cheveldayoff said. "As well, we also saw SaskTel's high speed Internet and entertainment services experience strong growth."

More vehicles were registered in Saskatchewan over the past year than in any previous year on record. The increase in the number of insured vehicles with SGI over the last 12 months is nearly 52,000, comprised of 36,000 vehicles and 16,000 trailers. This is the biggest one-year increase in SGI's recent history.

In total, SGI has insured 975,000 vehicles in Saskatchewan over the past 12 months, compared with 923,000 for the previous 12 months.

SaskPower experienced record-setting numbers of new service requests in 2008, up 32 per cent over year end numbers for 2007. As of mid-December, SaskPower had processed 10,427 requests for new service in 2008, compared to year-end totals of 7,921 in 2007 and 5,681 in 2006. Requests for power line locates are also on the rise, with no signs of slowing down. The forecast shows demand for electricity in the province to grow more in the next 12 to 14 months than it has in the last 10 years.

SaskEnergy also experienced its strongest customer growth in more than a decade in 2008, adding more than 5,000 new residential and business customers to bring its customer base to its highest level ever at 341,000.

High real estate activity helped Information Services Corporation (ISC) mark its second straight year of record earnings, thanks in part to high volumes of transactions in the Land Registry. At the end of November 2008, ISC had processed over 10,000 more transactions than at the same time last year - on track to exceed the 232,000 total transactions processed in 2007. Despite that increase, ISC continues to deliver one of the fastest turnaround times in Canada for standard real estate transactions.

"New vehicle sales are up compared to this time last year, more people are moving to and working in Saskatchewan compared to one year ago, our population is growing and Saskatchewan continues to have the lowest unemployment rate in the country," Cheveldayoff said. "Factor in that more young people are returning to live and work in Saskatchewan, and we're seeing the results of all this good news in many ways."

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For more information, contact:

Leanne Persicke
Executive Council
Regina
Phone: 306-787-1321
Email: leanne.persicke@gov.sk.ca
Cell: 306-541-7083