Statistics Canada reports drop in real GDP in late 2008
By Statistics Canada/Reed Construction Data
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Statistics Canada reports drop
in real GDP in late 2008
According to Statistics Canada, “real” inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product in Canada dropped 3.4 percent on an annualized basis in the latest
measured period, the fourth quarter of 2008.
According to Statistics Canada, “real” inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product in Canada dropped 3.4 percent on an annualized basis in the latest
measured period, the fourth quarter of 2008. This was the poorest
performance for Canadian GDP since the first quarter of 1991, when the
change was -5.9 per cent.
While there were a number of
contributing factors to the GDP decline, the fact that personal
consumer spending fell by 3.3 percent annualized explains much of what
happened. Cautious consumers cut their expenditures for the first time
since the final quarter of 1995. Nevertheless, there are many
interesting sides to the economic story.
Only one sector had an increase in
production and that was agriculture. Increasingly, analysts are paying
attention to agriculture as the industrial sector of the moment. The
worldwide demand/supply imbalance for food has eased somewhat from a
year ago, but it remains a potential hot topic. Among commodity prices,
“agricultural products” is one of the few areas where prices have
retained stability as opposed to sharp drop-offs.
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