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GDP grew by 0.3% in July: StatsCan

Manufacturing output rose 0.6 per cent in July, while the finance and insurance sector rose 0.8 per cent for the month.

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Non-conventional oil extraction jumped 9.1 per cent in July, recovering from earlier this year when maintenance shutdowns and wildfires hampered production in Alberta’s bitumen deposits.

Still, the Canadian economy is tracking toward third-quarter annualized growth of 2.5%, Mr. Tulk said, “and that’s consistent with an economy that’s reaching balance after the commodity shock from earlier in the year”.

The services sector grew 0.2%, to C$1.17 trillion, led by a 0.8% gain from the country’s financial-services sector.

Economists say these revisions from previous years will give a boost to Chancellor George Osborne ahead of his spending review and autumn statement in November.

The upward revision was mainly due to stronger growth between 2011 and 2013, when real gross domestic product (GDP) was roughtly 0.45 percentage points higher per year.

With a collapse in oil prices causing Canada’s economy to shrink in the first two quarters, the economy met the textbook definition of recession and has figured prominently in the federal election campaign.

The UK’s current account deficit narrowed more than expected in the second quarter, the Office for National Statistics revealed on Wednesday.

A Treasury spokesman said: ‘These new figures from the ONS show that the United Kingdom was the fastest growing G7 economy in both 2013 and 2014.

Construction slipped 0.1 per cent lower in July.

“We’ve been talking about how our low tax plan for jobs and growth is working, that we must stay the course, particularly in the context of global instability”.

Howard Archer, chief United Kingdom and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said it was “important” that the United Kingdom reduces its deficit.

With these numbers in, many economists are now predicting that Canada will almost double the 1.5-per-cent growth rate that the Bank of Canada had predicted for the third quarter.

He added: ‘It remains the sharpest downturn and slowest recovery on record’.

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“We expect that the recovery will pick up pace again soon”, said Paul Hollingsworth, United Kingdom economist at Capital Economics.

Second-quarter GDP has been confirmed at 0.7