CANADA

摘要

Last year the Canadian economy was battered by collapsing energy prices. Q4 2015 was noticeably weak, with GDP only managing 0.1% (q-o-q) growth, but going into Q1, activity accelerated by 0.6% This helped to bring the y-o-y rate up from 0.3% to 1.1 %. Household consumption supported growth, also rising by 0.6% in q-o-q terms, and by 2.2% (y-o-y). Meanwhile, net exports contributed 1.7%-points to GDP. However, capital spending remains in contractionary territory afterthe sharp retrenchment in energy spending. The decline in machinery & equipment investment slowed from -2.1 % (q-o-q) in Q4 to -0.7% in Q1, but business investment fell by 2.5%, on the back of a 4.3% slide in engineering structures. Only residential investment grew, by 2.7% over the quarter, while a C$-9.6bn drawdown in inventories showed that firms would rather run down stockpiles than ramp up production. Monthly output-based GDP underscored the weak state of the goods-producing industries: mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction contracted by -0.6% (m-o-m) in February and an even sharper-2.8% in March as support activities (like drilling and rigging) fell by 14% overthe month. Elsewhere, manufacturing fell by 0.2% as a result of negative durables output. The decline in industrial production sped up from -0.7% in February to -1.1 % in March. Our panel's GDP, profits and production forecasts for 2016 have each been cut.