Half of Canadian firms affected by conflict in Ukraine: survey

OTTAWA, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Roughly half of Canadian firms expected to be affected by the conflict in Ukraine, results from a special business survey in March showed on Monday.

In the interviews conducted by the Bank of Canada's regional offices with the senior management of more than 100 firms selected to reflect the composition of the gross domestic product of Canada's business sector, 77 out of 152 firms anticipated that they would be affected by the conflict.

The most common expected impact is upward cost pressure, tied mainly to increased prices for energy and other commodities as well as further supply chain disruptions, the central bank said.

Among the firms expecting the conflict to increase their input costs due to supply chain disruptions, many depend on goods coming from Europe or Asia. They anticipated rising transportation costs and longer delivery times, beyond those related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey revealed.

Other businesses expected delays and reduced availability of commodities. Many firms planned to pass conflict-related cost increases on to their customers, according to the survey results.