Canada’s State of Trade: Trade and Investment Update – 2017

Canada’s State of Trade annual report, produced by Global Affairs Canada, is now available on the GAC website.

Stronger manufacturing and trade activity, supported by partial recovery in commodity prices, has been observed in multiple regions and economies in the second half of 2016, leading many analysts to predict that the long-expected cyclical recovery is finally here. Though global growth estimates indicate that real global output slowed down from 2.7-percent growth in 2015 to 2.4 percent in 2016, several key economic players, especially among the advanced economies, performed over and above expectations in the second half of the year. This is particularly true for the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Germany and Spain put in a strong year overall; China’s growth remained strong; India suffered through a hiccup at the end of the year due to its monetary reform while Brazil spent the year deep in recession...

The forecast by the IMF expects fiscal policy at the global level to be broadly neutral in 2017 and 2018, with substantial variation at the country level. Financial conditions are expected to remain accommodative, and commodity prices to strengthen moderately. Global growth is expected to pick up to 2.9 percent in 2017 and to 3.0 percent in 2018; Canada’s economy is expected to grow 1.9 percent in 2017 and reach 2.0-percent growth in 2018.