Canada: Economic Recovery Slow But Alive

The Canadian economy is slowly inching its way out of recession in the third quarter, after three quarters of contraction, but growth was subpar as industrial production continued to decline, according to Reuters. Statistics Canada reported a 0.4% annualized growth in real gross domestic product for the period. But September provided a good hand-off into the fourth quarter by expanding 0.4% on a monthly basis from August.

The quarterly gain fell short of the market forecast of 0.7% growth, and economists were reluctant to declare the recession over, except in a purely technical sense.

Canada underperformed the U.S., which saw 2.8% growth in the third quarter, and lags behind other nations that emerged from recession earlier. The economy was still 3.2% smaller than a year earlier, and the data was unlikely to persuade the central bank to break its conditional pledge to keep the overnight interest rate at a record low 0.25% at least until mid-2010.