Canada’s economy likely grew 0.2 pct in February, says TD Economics

The Canadian economy is expected to have expanded 0.2 percent sequentially in February following a strong growth of 0.6 percent recorded in January, according to a TD Economics research report. The moderation in the economic growth is likely to have been driven by goods-producing industries, led by a decline in manufacturing and weather-related drag from utility output. On the other hand, construction and oil extraction are expected to have continued to strengthen albeit weaker pace than in January.

Meanwhile, some slowdown on the services side is expected to have been drive by likely corrections of retail and wholesale trade and in line with weak hours worded data, stated TD Economics.

“We view risks to our forecast skewed to the downside, with risk of a sharper pullback in goods-producing activity”, added TD Economics.

However, even with a downside miss, output in February is likely to be in line with the first quarter real GDP growth tracking well above a pace of 3 percent.