Gross domestic product rose 0.5% in the first month of the year after contracting 0.1% in the final month of 2022, the federal agency said.

Statistics Canada’s preliminary forecast for the month of February projects growth of 0.3%, but reminded that these data would be revised a month before their official release.

“Even if growth falters in March, Porter says it now looks like the first quarter will show 2.5% growth compared to a flat fourth quarter.” As we continue to expect a noticeable slowdown over the next two quarters, we are raising our full-year GDP growth estimate for 2023 […] at 1.0%. »

At Desjardins, we believe that strong real GDP growth in January and continued momentum in February leave little room for ambiguity. “The Canadian economy got off to a very solid start to the year. We now expect real GDP growth of almost 3% [à rythme annualisé] in the first quarter, which is well above the 0.5% growth estimated by the Bank of Canada in its January 2023 monetary policy report,” said Randall Bartlett, senior director, Canadian Economy at Desjardins.

As a result, the economist expects the central bank to revise its short-term forecast sharply upwards when it is released in a week and a half.

Numbers broken down

Manufacturing industries rose 0.4% in January, while services manufacturing industries rose 0.6%.

Statistics Canada pointed out that many of the key drivers of growth in January were also the largest contributors to the decline in December.

Growth in January was driven by wholesale trade, transportation & warehousing, mining, quarrying and oil & gas production, all of which declined in December.

Wholesale trade rose 1.8% in January, helped by wholesalers of machinery, equipment and supplies, while oil and gas in the mining, quarrying and quarrying sectors rose 1.1% after rising 3.3% in December had fallen.

The transportation and storage sector rose 1.9% in January, more than offsetting a 1.1% decline in December, which was driven by poor weather conditions.