Bank Economists Foresee Slackening Economy This Year, But No Recession

Canada's economy is undergoing "not a recession, but a couple of very weak quarters," said Drummond, forecasting growth in gross domestic product for 2008 of 1.9 per cent, after about 2.5 per cent in 2007. Sherry Cooper of BMO Capital Markets was slightly more optimistic, predicting 2.2 per cent growth in Canada but "sub two per cent" for the United States. "I'm not prepared yet to say the U.S. economy is in a recession, but we sure aren't far from it, and it will feel like recession," Cooper said, noting that the decline in the American housing market is "without precedent." And Warren Jestin of the Bank of Nova Scotia suggested that two per cent annual growth "may be the speed limit" for most developed economies over the next five years or more, amid "a huge shift" to developing countries like China and India. http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/headline_news/article.jsp?content=b010945A

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