Yellowknife, N.W.T. - Mining continues to drive the economies of the North and a recent report indicates fluctuating trends among the three territories.

While exploration in the Yukon and Nunavut continues to grow, production in the NWT is expected to decrease.

The associate director of the Conference Board of Canada, Christine Bernard, explained why the NWT is going down while the Yukon and Nunavut are going up.

"That's because of the diamond industry. It's reached a more mature stage right now, while in Nunavut and in Yukon, there are new mines that just opened up."

Bernard said the territory will experience stagnant growth in the short term with gross domestic product dropping 2.3 per cent this year.

The report also predicts that the NWT's economy will rebound next year and Bernard said it will start with the expansion of one of the diamond mines.

"At the Diavik site, they're not producing an open-pit mine and they're going underground. So in the mean time, we're not going to see any big increases in diamond production until this process is completed by the middle of next year."

If the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline goes ahead, that will add another boom to the NWT's economy.

Construction output is also expected to fall 30 per cent this year.

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