China News Agency, Toronto, March 8 (Reporter Yu Ruidong) As expected by the market, the Bank of Canada announced on the 8th that it will maintain the benchmark interest rate, that is, the overnight lending rate at 4.5%, temporarily stopping the consecutive interest rate hikes in the past year.

　　The Bank of Canada stated that from the perspective of the external macro environment, the development of the global economy is basically consistent with the forecasts of the Bank of Canada’s recent monetary policy report.

Global growth continues to slow; inflation, while still too high, has been revised down, led by energy prices.

The strength of China's economic recovery and the crisis in Ukraine still affect the expectation of economic upturn.

　　From the domestic situation in Canada, the growth in the fourth quarter of last year was flat, lower than the central bank's expectations.

The Bank of Canada said consumption, government spending and net exports were all growing, with the main drag on gross domestic product (GDP) being a sharp slowdown in inventory investment.

Household spending, business investment and domestic and foreign demand are all weakening.

Meanwhile, the Canadian labor market remains very tight, with the unemployment rate continuing to remain near record lows, but job vacancies rising.

Productivity has declined in recent quarters.

　　Inflation in Canada fell back to 5.9% in January this year.

But the Bank of Canada pointed out that food and housing price increases are still high.

Pressures in product and labor markets are expected to ease as economic growth weakens in the coming quarters.

The Bank of Canada forecasts that inflation will ease back to about 3 percent by the middle of this year, but that is still short of its 2 percent inflation target.

　　The Bank of Canada also stated that it will continue to implement the quantitative tightening policy.

　　In order to curb high inflation, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates eight times in a row since March last year, accumulatively raising interest rates by 425 basis points.

Its next meeting date is April 12.

(over)