"The sooner the leadership is clarified, the better"
- Watt, chief economist in Toronto at HSBC Bank Canada
Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is expected to receive a short list of candidates for a position of the Bank of Canada Governor, as current Governor Marc Carney will step out on June 1 to take over the Bank of England. A list should be prepared after a two-day meeting of the central bank's board of directors next week. Later, Flaherty will interview the people from the short list, while the appointment is to be approved by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet. A new candidate will have to guide the world's 11th largest economy to a recovery, as it is facing sluggish expansion threatened by weak exports and record high consumer debts. Despite sluggish growth, Carney has kept the benchmark interest rate at 1% level since September 2010, the longest pause since the 1950s.
"The sooner the leadership is clarified, the better," said David Watt, chief economist in Toronto at HSBC Bank Canada. "You don't necessarily want questions being asked about the Bank of Canada's inflation-fighting credibility," said Watt, a former senior economist at the central bank.
"While today's data suggest Q1 GDP could track somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1.5%, an acceleration from the pace seen in prior quarters," said CIBC economist Emanuella Enenajor.
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