Compiled by MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, April 12 (MarketsFarm) – The following is a glance at the news moving markets in Canada and globally.
- The Bank of Canada (BoC) kept its key interest rate at 4.5 per cent, following its announcement on Wednesday. In a statement, the BoC said inflation in Canada has been easing as in numerous other countries and global supply chains were becoming normalized. For more than a year, central banks around the world have been hiking their interest rates as a means to combat rising inflation. The BoC also projected three per cent inflation in 2023 and then slipping to two per cent in 2024. Inflation is currently at 5.2 per cent.
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Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm – The following is a glance at the news moving markets in Canada and globally. – Canadian…
- Meanwhile, inflation in the United States slipped to five per cent in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. The bureau said prices dipped 0.1 per cent from February to March, as inflation in the U.S. continued to slow. That included grocery prices pulling back for the first time since September 2020. However, the easing of inflation might not be enough to keep the U.S. Federal Reserve from further increasing its key interest rates come early May.
- A media report on Wednesday said South Korea is headed towards a demographic and economic disaster due to having the world’s lowest birth rate – despite the country’s government doling out money to encourage people to have more children. Al Jazeera reported the South Korean government program that gives parents the equivalent of US$10,500 has met with very little success. Earlier this year, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) pegged South Korea’s birth rate for 2022 at 0.78 per cent, down from 0.81 in 2021. For a country’s population to be stable, it needs a minimum birth rate of 2.1 per cent.
