The tide has turned. That’s the view of economists at ScotiaBank who are among the most bullish on where interest rates are headed.
They project the central bank will lower rates a quarter point at each of the next three settings. That would mean they would have fallen a full percentage by year’s end as the national economy is slowing faster than they expected only a few months ago.
Lower interest rates will act as an economic stimulant which will see growth begin to increase. For Saskatchewan, the bank sees expansion of 1.4 per cent this year. That would be third best among the provinces on their graph and slightly higher than the national average. And next year we’d generate further expansion in the two per cent range which would see us fall into fifth place among the provinces and basically on par with the country as a whole.
The stimulus though would be clearly evident in the housing arena. ScotiaBank sees Saskatchewan home builders upping their starts from 4,500 this year to 5,800 next year which would be the highest level in this decade.
