Currently, the Bank of Canada continues to build their case for some higher interest rates. However, they have stopped for the moment. The central bank has remained with a key rate unchanged from 1.25% on Wednesday. Related to this, they cited the present weakness in housing, as well as trade and investment when it comes to export.
A Cautious Attitude
Many key ingredients for sustaining higher rates seem to be okay. However, the bank declared its intention of remaining cautious when it comes to other policy adjustments in the future. Currently, we look at Canada’s economy while it’s operating with ‘little slack’. Moreover, inflation has been edging higher and now it’s in line with the 2% target set by the bank. All this information was presented in a statement issued by the bank to justify its rate decision. Don’t forget that the rising wages are also making the consumption growth stay quite ‘robust’.
An Interesting Evolution
Ever since last June, we witnessed three raises of the key rate of the bank. What’s more, the investors and economists expect us to see one more in 2018. Andrew Grantham works as an economist for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. According to him, the statement shows that the Bank will most likely make another rate hike in July. However, they’re not rushing to move anytime soon after that.
We can blame the go-slow attitude of the bank partly on the expansive capacity to grow of the economy. For 2018, 2019, and 2020, the bank boosted its own estimate for the potential output grow by 2 – 4%. This information was present in the Monetary Policy Report, which they had released on Wednesday. Now, the median should equal 1.8% in all these three years. If they are right, an increased capacity can help the economy grow faster without triggering the inflation.
Henry Lares is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post. In regards to academics, Henry earned an engineering degree from Apex Technical School. Henry has a passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.
