Report Shows Canadian Economy Decelerated in First Quarter

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A report by Statistics Canada has revealed that the Canadian economy decelerated in the first three months of 2014, due to the ongoing effect of severe winter weather as it hampers growth along with a combined weak business and residential investments. According to the report, Canada’s Gross Domestics Product, i.e. the broadest measure of economic activity, increased only 1.2% on an annualized basis, i.e. well below the estimates of the private-sector.

The report issued by StatsCan on Friday said that it was the smallest annualized quarterly increase since 0.9% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2012. Generally, the economists were expecting approximately 1.8% annualized growth in the first quarter. Despite its poor performance, Canada still managed to do better than the U.S. between January and March, which reportedly suffered an annualized decline of 1% for the quarter. And for March alone, gross domestic product edged up 0.1%, i.e. the smallest monthly advance since December 2013, when the economy declined by 0.4%.

At the same time, Statistics Canada says that GDP grew by a downwardly revised annualized rate of 2.7% in the fourth quarter of 2013, down from 2.9%, from while the estimate for the full-year’s gain remained at 2%. In addition to that, the federal agency also revised its quarterly estimate for the third quarter to 3%, i.e. an increase from the initial 2.7%, while Q2 was adjusted to an increase of 1.9 % from 2.2% and growth in the first three months of 2013 was adjusted to 3% from 2.9%.