Canada's exporters struggling to tap US recovery

Canada's economy grew by only 0.7% annualised over the second half of last year, with a decline in exports subtracting almost 2 percentage points from annualised GDP. The recent lacklustre pace of non-commodity exports suggests that any export growth will be hard fought this year, even if the recovery in the US gathers momentum. All things considered, we suspect that export growth this year may not be a lot better than the disappointing 1.6% posted for 2012 as a whole.