Okay.
We are very related. We are independent from each other, but I used to have her job until June, so I do understand this province a little bit as a result, if I haven't forgotten too much.
We're also similar in that we both represent the producing side of the mining business, so we have members who produce a whole range of commodities. In my case, because I represent the Mining Association of Canada, we represent everything from base metals, to gold, precious metals, diamonds, uranium, oil from the oil sands, copper. You name it, and you'll find it produced by our members.
I also wanted to echo the comment made about this great backdrop. This is one of the most important gateways to the emerging markets in Asia, and right here you can see the kind of underlying economic strength in Canada as a result of our natural resource sector. I wanted to emphasize that point today. We're all aware of the extreme volatility in today's global economy, and Canada's outperforming most of the world. One of the reasons we're doing so is obviously the actions taken by governments in the past to put us in stronger financial shape to begin with, but also because we have a natural resource strength that other countries do not have.
By way of example, in the mining sector just between 2009 and 2010, our contributions to government increased by 65%. Ours was one of the first sectors to rebound from the 2008 crisis so quickly. Within three months, our industry was back on track and we've been going strong ever since. Notwithstanding the volatility of the last few months, you will see commodity prices that are still at a pretty healthy range. Our industry and our companies are also today in a more solid position than they were in 2008, which caught a lot of companies off guard. We do have some underlying strengths now that position us well for the future.
I have this presentation, which I'm not going to go through slide by slide, given that it's five minutes. I'll just ask you to flip ahead to China as the mineral price driver. I think you're all familiar with this, but the underlying strength behind what's happening in the mining business is because of countries like China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and so on. They're the reason that commodity prices continue to remain strong, notwithstanding what's happening in Europe. Our industry is bullish about the future. We believe that we will remain a cyclical industry, but we are in a period now of long-term economic opportunity and growth that will probably be with us for several decades. For Canada, which has a mining sector that is homegrown, which is a global leader and a vast country with tremendous resources, we have a huge opportunity ahead of us.
What's behind some of this? There are some little facts here, but if you just look over the foreseeable future, Chinese growth is expected to be in the 6% to 9% range over the next number of years. And look at what's happening in China. Right now, only 10 people per 100 have a car in China, versus 76 in the United States; four have a personal computer, versus 76 in the United States. This is the kind of change that is happening now. As this just continues, the demand for the things that make these things that the Chinese want is going to continue to support commodity prices.
If you look at the Canadian opportunities, we have now estimated that there are some $137 billion in new private sector investment that could be spent in the next five years in the mining sector alone. A lot of this is actually already committed. Some of it has been announced. Vale, for example, has announced that there's some $10 billion going into Manitoba, Ontario, and Newfoundland. Teck here in British Columbia has announced major investments to its Trail facility and to expanding Highland Valley. So there's a lot that's already there, but there's a lot more that could come.
Why are we in this situation? Because of the steps that successive governments have made to make Canada one of the most attractive jurisdictions in the world for mining. We now capture the largest share of global mineral exploration because of tax measures like flow-through, because we have tremendous human resource capacity, and because we are a global leader. We know how to do this in this country.
We've been smart about our infrastructure. Here we have, for example, Ridley Terminals, the investments in the gateway, the new investments in the Highway 37 power line, which will open up a whole new region of British Columbia for economic development, and a huge copper resource.
So we've done a lot to plan things.
I'm nearing the end.