Alberta leads economic way: report

Alberta’s economy significantly outperformed the national average in 2011, as rising oil production fuelled 5.2 per cent real GDP growth, according to the Provincial Monitor report released Thursday by BMO Economics.
The report said the province should remain atop the Canadian leaderboard this year, with growth running 1.5 percentage points above the national average at 3.4 per cent.
“The energy sector continues to drive growth in the province, with oil production up 9.8 per cent in 2011 despite some temporary disruptions,” said Robert Kavcic, economist with BMO Capital Markets, in a statement. “Crude bitumen production rose 12 per cent, and the province is expecting growth of more than 10 per cent annualized in the next three years.”
The report said strength in the energy sector has rekindled in-migration and helped tighten the labour market.
“Net interprovincial in-migration was the highest since early 2008 in the first three-quarters of 2011,” said Kavcic. “As well, private-sector employment growth was a robust 6.9 per cent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2012, well above the 1.5 per cent year-over-year national pace. Concerns over labour availability and input costs are now increasing, but most recent metrics remain far from the extremes of the last boom.”
Also on Thursday, a report by economist Justin Cooke, of the Conference Board of Canada, said confidence among Canada’s business leaders edged up in the first quarter of 2012, as they showed increasing optimism over the future performance of their firms and the Canadian economy.
Following three consecutive quarterly declines dating back to the start of 2011, the Index of Business Confidence has now risen in each of the past two quarters — up 6.6 points to 99.3 in the fourth quarter of 2011, and rising another 2.5 points to 101.8 in the first quarter of 2012, said the report.
“The survey asks business leaders about their expectations on the future of the Canadian economy. This time, 43 per cent of respondents said they believe economic conditions will improve over the next six months — a huge improvement from the last survey, when only 19 per cent responded positively,” said the report. “Even more encouraging, only nine per cent of respondents said they expect the economy to get worse over the next six months. That is a major turnaround from the last survey, where negative responses outnumbered positives ones.”