Quebec is now offering foreign movie producers who make their movies in the province a tax credit 2 percent larger than the credit offered by rival province Ontario, which increased its foreign-movie-makers' tax credit just before Christmas.

"People in the Quebec film industry have been asking the provincial government to help for months," the CBC said.

Michel Trudel, president of Canada's biggest studio facility, Cité du Cinéma, said 2004 had been a "disaster" for Montreal.

"The city was dead for eight months," he said.

While the tax credit will cost Quebec about $5 million, it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from film production, a Quebec government official said.