Canada bankruptcies up over 12% in 2008

OTTAWA, Feb. 9 (Chinese media) -- The number of individuals and businesses going bankrupt in Canada in 2008 totaled 96,774, up 12.3 percent from the 86,140 recorded in 2007, according to local media reports on Monday.

For the fourth quarter, bankruptcies totaled 26,436, up 9.3 percent from the previous quarter and 25.3 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2007, federal monitoring agency the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported Monday.

However, the number of individuals and businesses going bust dropped in December compared with November.

About 8,299 individuals and businesses went bankrupt in December, down 4.3 percent from the 8,669 who filed in November.

Individual bankruptcies totaled 7,821, down 4.2 percent from November, while business bankruptcies totaled 478, down 5.5 percent from November.