Boom in energy and commodities boosting economy across the country

    TORONTO, April 14 /CNW/ - CIBC (CM: TSX; NYSE) - The energy- and
resource-rich Canadian economy will not follow the U.S. into a recession,
predicts CIBC World Markets in its latest economic forecast.
    The report finds that record strength in global commodity and energy
prices continues in spite of the U.S. slowdown and this has translated into
soaring growth in Canadian personal and corporate income. Those gains show up
in a very healthy increase in domestic spending and enriched government
coffers. The strength of the Canadian economy in 2008 will be reflected in a
continuing strong loonie that should hit US$1.05 by year end.
    "For Canada, the diminished importance of the American economy to global
commodity demand has meant downside protection for its resource rents against
a U.S. economic downturn," says Jeff Rubin, the Chief Economist and Chief
Strategist at CIBC World Markets. "The resource sector still enjoys booming
economic conditions, and will continue to do so over the next four quarters,
irrespective of the pace or timing of a U.S. recovery."
    According to Mr. Rubin, the sustained high prices for oil and other
commodities has not only benefited Western Canada, but has played a broader
role in national growth extending far beyond jobs in the oil patch. The report
notes that government revenues have grown from royalty rents and soaring
corporate income taxes which have funded a national public sector hiring
spree, huge infrastructure spending and fresh tax-cutting initiatives.
    The report also notes that while every American recession in the last
half century has produced at least a material slowdown in Canada, the
country's economy doesn't always march in lock-step with its southern
neighbour. Canada has seen more moderate slowdowns when the initial shock hit
the U.S. economy where it was more vulnerable, as was the case in the OPEC oil
recession of 1974, the tech bubble burst in 2001, and now the mortgage crash
of 2008.
    Since there was no comparable disaster in Canada's less-risk-taking
mortgage market, the initial shock to GDP here has been entirely external. The
report finds that if Canada were an island unto itself, the talk would be
about a boom, not a recession risk, given the strength of final domestic
demand, and particularly, consumer spending, which was up more than seven per
cent annualized in the fourth quarter of 2007.
    While the bank does not see this torrid pace continuing, it forecasts
that solid household income fundamentals combined with further interest rate
cuts, should be enough to sustain a three per cent pace to real consumption in
2008, even with a temporary rise in the jobless rate over the summer.
    "While the U.S. economy has relied on its trade sector to offset a
contracting domestic economy, north of the border, the opposite has held,"
says Mr. Rubin. "The trade sector has acted as a drag on GDP growth in the
face of huge, largely resource-driven gains in domestic spending. It is in
domestic demand growth, much more than in GDP growth, that the relative
strength of the Canadian economy is most apparent against the U.S." He notes
that domestic demand growth in Canada likely ran about five and a half per
cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2008 compared to about one and a
half per cent in the U.S.
    Mr. Rubin believes manufacturing in Canada - in particular autos and
parts - will continue to be a drag on the Canadian economy. He thinks the
sector remains vulnerable to both a U.S. recession and a strong Canadian
dollar. These combined forces will hit Ontario the hardest, with its economy
likely to come closest of all the provinces to be dragged down into a
recession of its own. In response, he expects the Bank of Canada to chop
another 75 basis points from the overnight rate taking it as low as 2.75 per
cent - although this would still be 150 basis points above the U.S. Federal
Reserve Board's target.
    This rate gap, combined with continued strength in energy and resource
prices, should push the Canadian dollar to as high as $1.05 against the U.S.
greenback by year end, further increasing the spending power of Canadian
consumers. The rise in the Canadian dollar over the last year has largely kept
Canadian consumers immune from the significant increases in food and energy
prices felt around the globe. In the U.S., all-item inflation is already
running at four per cent and growing, a full two per cent higher than in
Canada.
    "While a rising loonie has moderated the increase in largely
US-dollar-denominated food and energy prices, the Canadian dollar may be hard
pressed to keep pace with further increases coming in food and energy prices,"
notes Mr. Rubin. He expects Canadians will begin to feel the pain from global
food and energy prices in 2009 with the Canadian CPI to average three per
cent, the upper end of the Bank of Canada's inflation rate target.
    While he expects the U.S. economic numbers will continue to deteriorate
over the next few months, Mr. Rubin thinks the recession will be short lived.
"Stateside, a lot of ammunition is being spent fighting the recession. A
plunging federal funds rate, some US$100 billion in reserve lending from the
Federal Reserve Board, and a likely Congressional fiscal bailout of some
$300 billion in subprime mortgages should power the American economy out of
recession by the second half of the year.
    "In the interim, North American stock markets will have to hold their
nose to some ugly non-farm payroll losses and some real, if modest, shrinkage
in GDP, just as a rate cutting Fed has to hold its nose to the odour of a four
per cent-and-rising CPI rate."
    The full CIBC World Markets report is available at
http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/fapr08.pdf.

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