Source: The Canadian Press

Canadian industries operated at 74.2% of their production capacity in the first quarter of 2010.

That’s an increase from 71.3% in the fourth quarter of 2009 and their third straight quarterly increase.

But it’s still well below the 83.1% of the first quarter of 2007, after which a downward spiral began.

Statistics Canada says the increases of 2.7 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 2.9 percentage points in the first quarter of 2010 were the two largest quarterly gains on record.

The agency says the strong gains were driven by the manufacturing industry, where the utilization rate rose to 75% from 70.7.

Mining led the growth with an advance of 8.2 percentage points.

StatsCan reports growth of capacity use in manufacturing was widespread, with 20 of the 21 major manufacturing industries advancing.