中国新闻网/加拿大央行二十三日宣布，加国经济衰退期已经结束，正在开始一段长时间的财富重建期。如果第三季度实现增长，则此次衰退将成为加拿大史上最短的一次经济衰退期。
加央行今天发布的经济分析报告称，从今年第三季度开始，本国经济将结束衰退，预计七月至九月的国民生产总值将增长百分之一点三。
加央行行长卡尼在新闻发布会上说，上半年经济收缩并没有预期的那么严重，消费者和商业信心高涨，加之更强有力的金融条件，都促成了GDP从下跌到增长的变化。
加央行分析称，目前看，全球经济也在逐渐恢复当中。美国和中国的经济复苏尤其强劲，这都将为加拿大的出口商提供更多机会，也会抬高商品的价格。也因为如此，央行期待出口商从消费者手中接过接力棒，成为第三季度经济复苏的主要力量。
今年四月，加央行曾预计本国经济将在第一季度大幅滑落百分之七点三，结果实际下降指数为百分之五点四。目前，第二季度的预期维持收缩百分之三点五不变。
本月二十一日，加央行决定继续维持银行间隔夜拆借利率百分之零点二五的历史最低水平，并称如果通涨率保持低水平，这个利率将维持到二0一0年第二季度。这个利率是加拿大央行自一九三四年成立至今执行的最低利率水平。
Bank of Canada says recession over, growth returning to economy (BoC-Economy)
Source: The Canadian Press – Broadcast wire
Jul 23, 2009 10:45
OTTAWA – The Bank of Canada is declaring the recession essentially over in Canada.
The central bank says the economy will expand by 1.3 per cent during the summer months after three straight quarters of sharp contraction.
The new forecast puts Canada at the front of the line of countries that are coming out of what economists have called the worst global recession since the Second World War.
The central bank predicts Canada’s rebound will more than double that of the United States next year with a projected growth of three per cent, as opposed to 1.4 per cent south of the border.
That’s because Canadian consumers are more confident of future conditions and better positioned to return to spending.
But the U.S. economy is also in a healing phase, the bank adds, and that will revive Canada’s export sector, particularly in autos and forestry.
Canada’s plunge into red ink easier to reverse than believed: CIBC
Federal deficit will melt away faster than other nations as economy recovers
TORONTO, July 23 /CNW/ – CIBC (CM: TSX; NYSE) – Federal budgets will be in deficit over the next few years but Canadians likely won’t be saddled with the massive debt and interest costs that plagued the country 20 years ago, notes a new report from CIBC World Markets.
“Canada’s fiscal standing is hardly at risk,” say CIBC’s Chief Economist Avery Shenfeld and Senior Economist Warren Lovely in the report that questions recent gloomy forecasts about the size, duration and impact of budget deficits to come in Canada.
Pointing first to history, Mr. Shenfeld and Mr. Lovely note that fiscal projections often understate the potential to tackle deficit challenges, and that relatively small errors in estimating future growth can see medium-term deficit projections careen wildly off the mark. This was the case following the early 1990s recession when “large surpluses seemed like a fairy tale.” Instead, they say, the $37.5 billion deficit “was erased at a breakneck pace” and transformed into a $3 billion surplus in three years “as the business cycle swung to expansion and a ‘jobless recovery’ eventually gave way to more serious hiring and income growth.
“Almost overnight, Canada rewrote its fiscal credentials, shedding the ‘honourary member of the Third World’ mantle The Wall Street Journal had slapped the country with in 1993.”
Another vital factor in the current deficit outlook is the temporary nature of today’s high-profile stimulus efforts, including infrastructure programs with fixed termination dates. “Nearly all of the 2009-2010 deficit was cyclical, reflecting the economic hit to revenues and one-off stimulus efforts that will be gone as the economy moves back to full employment,” say Mr. Shenfeld and Mr. Lovely.
The large role that corporate profits and rising incomes have had in creating budget surpluses in recent years will also help tackle future deficits. “Pre-recession heights in commodity prices generated huge revenue flows associated with resource royalties, and taxes on soaring corporate profits and capital gains incomes. If, as we expect, commodity prices rebound over the medium term, that could produce another material improvement in federal fortunes, even if real GDP growth is anaemic and tax losses are carried forward in the early years of the expansion.”
But even if fiscal progress is slow and deficits prove hard to erase, Ottawa has more room and time to act than it has had in past recessions. The policy tools for a fiscal tightening are today more readily available than in earlier periods, when the debt servicing burden ate up a larger share of Ottawa’s revenue dollar.
“Over a 15-year period from 1982 to 1997, debt service was equivalent to fully one-third of federal revenue. Today that interest burden has fallen to just 13 per cent versus total revenue,” note Mr. Shenfeld and Mr. Lovely.
The CIBC economists caution that patience will be required before much fiscal progress is seen. “Results for 2010/11 will be restrained by the need to avoid a sharp belt-tightening that puts the recovery at risk.”
Mr. Shenfeld and Mr. Lovely also argue that any remaining deficit after five years point will be small enough that the debt to GDP ratio will fall, minimizing the government’s need to issue debt. Financing needs will also be reduced as the federal government cashes in on insured mortgages it recently bought.
“As a result, the current spike in Canada issuance should prove temporary even if the deficit hangs around longer than the government expects,” say Mr. Shenfeld and Mr. Lovely, adding that “this time, The Wall Street Journal will be comparing the U.S., not Canada, to banana republic debtor nations.
The complete CIBC World Markets report is available at: http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/sjul09.pdf
CIBC’s wholesale banking business provides a range of integrated credit and capital markets products, investment banking, and merchant banking to clients in key financial markets in North America and around the world. We provide innovative capital solutions and advisory expertise across a wide range of industries as well as top-ranked research for our corporate, government and institutional clients.
Ottawa home renovation program helps boost retail sales, economic recovery (Retail-Economy)
Source: The Canadian Press
Jul 22, 2009 17:13
By: Julian Beltrame
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA _ The federal government can take at least a little of the credit for the return of the Canadian shopper that is helping lead the country out of recession.
New retail sales for May rose a surprisingly robust 1.2 per cent, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday, in yet another clear signal that the economic free fall of the winter months is braking quickly.
The eye-catching detail in the report was the one per cent hike in the building and outdoor home-supplies stores sector _ double the previous month’s rate _ and a 1.1 per cent gain in home centre and hardware store sales.
CIBC World Markets economist Krishen Rangasamy said Ottawa’s $3-billion home renovation program, which pays back up to $1,350.
“That definitely is having an effect,” he said. “Since this home renovation tax relief became available, you’ve seen sales in that particular category increase in all months except for one (March).”
In the June economic update, Ottawa reported Revenue Canada had received more than 700,000 inquiries from Canadians about the tax credit.
More generally, the sales report points to an economy that is slowing coming out of one of the worst downturns since the Second World War.
Economists have recently tracked the relative resiliency of the Canadian domestic economy _ as opposed to the carnage in the export sector and manufacturing _ that has helped keep Canada from falling as sharply or deeply as the U.S.
A recent Bank of Montreal report credited the difference in the two economies to the relative low level of job losses that have occurred in Canada compared with the U.S. Using comparable criteria, the paper argues that Canada’s jobless rate of 8.6 per cent is actually 2.4 points better than that in America.
With Canadian banks relatively healthy and better household solvency rates, Canadian consumers have been consistently outpacing their U.S. counterparts in purchases of homes, autos and other goods for most of the past year.
“It takes a willingness of borrowers to borrow and lenders to lend to turn improved affordability of big-ticket items into drivers of consumer spending and economic recovery, which is why Canada is racing ahead of the United States,” wrote economist Michael Gregory.
The Bank of Canada is also buying into the story-line that the Canadian economy is poised for a rebound, forecasting on Tuesday that output will grow by a full three per cent in 2010.
Although the May retail numbers are ancient history in terms of what is occurring in the economy now, economists said it will have the effect of moderating the expected gross domestic product contraction during the month to an expected 0.5 per cent.
TD Bank economist Pascal Gauthier agreed the data is another indicator of recovery, but cautioned retail sales remain 5.8 per cent lower than peak levels of last September.
“Recovery indeed, but the climb back up to pre-recession levels can reasonably be expected to be relatively long and gradual,” he said.
Still, economists noted there were no weaknesses in the report. Not only was the value of sales up to $34 billion, but the volume of sales also increased by 0.7 per cent.
Statistics Canada said seven of eight sectors reported growth, led by a 2.4 per cent increase in the automotive sector and a 3.4 per cent hike in sales at new-car dealerships. The exception was in clothing and accessories stores.
The gains spread coast to coast, with the exception of Prince Edward Island.
“The big picture is that optimism is coming back,” said CIBC’s Rangasamy. “Consumers have to feel optimistic before starting to shop again and we’ve seen a come back, not only in this report, but in housing sales as well.”
