Economics
Housing Boom Helps Prop Up 5.6% Annualized Growth in Canada
- Economy shows resilience, with ‘lots of spending power left’
- Residential investment now makes up record proportion of GDP
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Canada’s economy continued its recovery from pandemic damage in the first quarter, driven by a surge in home construction.
Gross domestic product expanded at a 5.6% annualized rate in the three-month period, after a revised 9.3% pace at the end of last year, according to a report Tuesday from Statistics Canada. That’s slightly below the 6.8% median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Housing investment grew at an annualized 43% pace, easily the biggest driver of growth.