Ontario GDP growth to reach decade high

TORONTO―Ontario’s GDP is going to expand 3.3 per cent this year― its highest growth rate in more than a decade, according to the latest outlook from RBC Economics.

RBC expects Ontario will move beyond a full recovery and finally enter into economic expansion phase. It points to several positive economic indicators, including the province’s employment gains this year, which accounted for 60 per cent of all jobs in created in Canada.

By 2012, the U.S. economy will “hit its stride” with 3.4 per cent growth. That will spur demand for Ontario products and offset to any weakness in provincial capital spending. The province’s growth rate will stay solid in the next year at 3.1 per cent.

Craig Wright, senior vice-president and chief economist at RBC cautioned the auto sector will see a slower start to that growth due to Japan’s tsunami and earthquake.

“A number of assembly plants in the province have been affected by disruptions to supply-chains caused by this natural disaster,” Wright noted.

“These disruptions will be temporary, but they will nonetheless dampen activity in the industry in the second quarter of this year.”

2011 GDP growth projections across Canada:

• CANADA 3.2%

• ALTA 4.3%
• NFLD 4.0%
• SASK 3.8
• MAN 3.6%
• B.C. 2.6%
• QUE 2.4%
• PEI 2.4%
• N.B. 1.9%
• N.S. 1.7%