Water and the World
THE US IMPORT MARKET
· As the bottled water industry has grown, so have America's imports of drinking water. In 1989, the United States imported over 259 billion liters of drinking water-more than one thousand liters per US citizen. By 1999, that number had risen to 568 billion liters, an increase of 119%. The list of countries that were major importers of water to the United States, however, did not change. Canada, France, Italy, and Mexico accounted for 95% of the US import market in 1989 and 94.9% of the market in 1999.
· The most interesting change in the list of supplying countries was
the rise of Canada, which ranked a distant second to France in 1989 with
21.4% of imports (France had 69.1%). By 1999, Canada's share had risen to 51.1%
while France's had dropped to 33.7%. This can be attributed to two factors:
1) NAFTA- By lowering restrictions on foreign investment and land ownership in Canada,
NAFTA made it easier for American companies to purchase Canadian land and
ship the water on that land back to the United States.
2) The rise in the popularity of bottled water- With the rise in demand for bottled water,
International firms became increasingly conscious of the high costs of shipping
water. They therefore sought sources of water close to areas of high demand, and
thus purchased land in Canada, which is both proximal to the United States
market and possesses an abundance of clean, fresh water
While imports have risen, domestic supply still dominates the US market. In 1998, the value of water imported by the United States was $317 million. At the same time, the wholesale sales of bottled water in the US was $4.33 billion.
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