The pace of Canada’s economic growth picked up steam in the first quarter of this year, according to figures released by Statistics Canada Wednesday morning, helped by continued household spending and a turnaround in business investment.
The agency says real gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.7% in the first three months of the year.
That was short of expectations. Economists had estimated the growth rate for the quarter would be 3.9%.
However, the last month of the quarter was stronger than expected.
Growth in March came in at 0.5%, higher than the estimate of 0.2%
Results for the second half of 2016 were also revised higher as the figures for third and fourth quarters were increased to 4.2%, and 2.7%, compared with earlier readings of 3.8% and 2.6% respectively.
