Industrial capacity utilization increased only slightly during the last three months of 2005, despite strong exports and personal expenditures, Statistics Canada said today.

Canadian industries were operating about 86.3% of their capacity in the final quarter of last year, StatsCan said.

That’s slightly higher than the industrial capacity utilization rate of 86.1% reported in the third quarter of 2005.

But it’s still slower than the 87.6% peak reached in the first quarter of 1988, the agency added.

Higher international demand provided a significant boost to the durable goods-producing industries, while imports met most of the rise in domestic demand, StatsCan said.

The industrial capacity utilization rate is the ratio of an industry’s actual output to its estimated potential output.