Manitoba’s private and public sectors spent more on non-residential construction projects last year than was first thought.

Final year-end figures released today by Statistics Canada show $1.28 billion was spent on commercial, industrial and office projects in the province in 2012.

That was an increase of 18.1 per cent from 2011’s total of $1.08 billion, and 5.4 per cent higher than the preliminary estimate of $1.22 billion released in mid January.

The final tally included approximately $714.7 million spent on commercial projects, $389.2 million spent on institutional (government) projects, and $172.7 million spent on industrial projects, the figures show.

Manitoba’s increase was also substantially higher than the national average increase for 2012 of 2.2 per cent — $48.5 billion versus $47.5 billion.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca