New Westminster - Commerce and Industry

Commerce and Industry

With the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1886, trade began to shift to nearby Vancouver. Nonetheless, New Westminster weathered the loss, and remained an important industry and transportation centre. The local economy has always had a mix of industrial sectors, but it has evolved over the years, moving from a reliance on the primary resources of lumber and fishing in the 19th century, to heavy industry and manufacturing in the first half of the 20th century, to retail from the mid-1950s to the 1970s, to professional and business services in the 1990s, and finally to high-tech and fibre-optic industry in the early 21st century.