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Economy

Bank of Canada line up to taper emergency stimulus

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Bank of Canada expecting strong growth

LONDON (Reuters) – The Bank of Canada set the taper ball rolling last week, becoming the first major central bank to cut back on pandemic-era money-printing stimulus programmes. So who’s next?

The big guns of central banking – the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan – won’t officially pare stimulus for a while, a message the BOJ reinforced on Tuesday and one the Fed is expected to reiterate on Wednesday.

Yet the Bank of Canada‘s C$1 billion ($806 million) cut to its weekly bond-buying programme may remind investors that the next phase in 2021 will be the taper phase, John Briggs, global head of strategy at NatWest Markets, told clients.

With economic data confirming a brighter outlook, Bank of America estimates central bank asset purchases in the United States, Japan, the euro zone and Britain will slide to about $3.4 trillion this year from almost $9 trillion in 2020.

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For 2022, the U.S. bank predicts purchases of just $400 billion.

Here’s a look at who is tapering, who may raise interest rates and who might be the last to call time on pandemic-era monetary stimulus.

 

For a graphic on major cbanks:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/gjnvwdormpw/major%20cbanks.JPG

 

1/ NORWAY

Norges Bank is at the vanguard in terms of signalling a retreat, having flagged last month that a rate rise may be coming in the second half of 2021. That has made the crown this year’s best performing G10 currency.

The central bank doesn’t intervene in bond markets, so the taper debate is not applicable.

2/ CANADA

Having announced tapering, Canada has signalled that its key interest rate could rise from 0.25% late in 2022.

 

For a graphic on Canada‘s bond market takes tapering in its stride:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/dgkvlyzyrpb/canada2604.png

 

3/ UNITED STATES

The Fed plans to keep borrowing costs near 0% and maintain monthly asset purchases worth $120 billion until it sees “substantial further progress” towards full employment and its 2% flexible inflation target.

But with the economy expected to grow by more than 6% this year and inflation to be a “little higher” – according to Fed boss Jerome Powell – markets are pricing in a rate rise in 2023 and many analysts expect tapering to start this year.

The Fed faces a delicate balancing act, ensuring that tapering at a time of massive U.S. government borrowing does not push up Treasury yields too much.

Pictet Wealth senior economist Thomas Costerg expects tapering to start by early next year and proceed at a monthly pace of $10 billion. He said that means the process would last about a year – “enough to keep expectations for the first rate hike well in the distance”.

 

For a graphic on Central bank holdings of government bonds:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/yxmvjdwyevr/CBANKS2704.PNG

 

4/ BRITAIN

The departure of Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s hawkish chief economist, has raised expectations that the central bank’s 895 billion pound ($1.2 trillion) bond-buying scheme won’t be reduced any time soon. The BoE expects inflation will be running at 1.9% by the end of this year but says the rise is likely to be capped over the medium term by labour market weakness.

Still, NatWest analysts believe the BoE could announce a 4 billion pound reduction in its so-called quantitative easing (QE) in May, trimming it to 14 billion pounds a month.

Money markets see a 56% chance of a quarter-point interest rate rise by the end of 2022.

5/ EURO ZONE

Anemic long-term inflationary pressures mean euro area rates are unlikely to rise for years. But tapering may come sooner, especially within the European Central Bank’s 1.85 trillion euro ($2.2 trillion) pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP).

Technically, this runs until March 2022 but some officials are already advocating reducing bond purchases as the economy strengthens.

Danske Bank analysts reckon the ECB will end up using only 1.65 trillion euros of the total PEPP stimulus package.

“For all we know at this stage, PEPP is coming to an end in March next year, so if you think about the slowdown from the current pace, that could come as soon as June,” said Andreas Billmeier, European economist at Western Asset.

 

For a graphic on When will the ECB slow the pace of its emergency bond buys?

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xklpyyrjmpg/ECB2704.PNG

 

6/ AUSTRALIA

Australia’s economic rebound has surpassed expectations and is set for an “above trend” expansion, the Reserve Bank of Australia said in April. But the bank, which has underscored its dovish credentials by adopting yield curve control, could be among the last to tighten policy.

It wants unemployment slashed and inflation within its 2% to 3% target before shifting tack, but doesn’t see either happening until 2024. Economists expect rates to stay on hold until then and reckon the RBA could even extend asset purchases by another A$75 billion to A$100 billion ($58 bln to $77 bln).

7/ NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand’s strong recovery and red-hot property markets have raised speculation that a rate rise may come sooner than expected.

While its key interest rate is expected to stay at 0.25% this year, some analysts predict a rise in the second half of 2022. The central bank meanwhile appears to be in no hurry to taper its NZ$100 billion ($72 billion) QE programme.

8/ SWEDEN

Swedish inflation is approaching the Riksbank’s 2% target but it has said interest rates would stay at 0% for years. However, its 700 billion crowns ($84 billion) asset purchase programme will wind down this year as planned.

9/ JAPAN

The BOJ pledged this week to maintain stimulus using a yield target and purchases of government bonds and equities.

It has been accused of “stealth tapering” because its bond-buying has slowed since yield curve control (YCC) was adopted in 2016, though purchases have picked up slightly in the past year.

In March, they were about 22.2 trillion yen ($204 billion)above levels a year ago. But that’s still a quarter of the 81.96 trillion yen year-on-year increase in August 2016, just before YCC came in.

 

For a graphic on BOJ steadily ‘stealth’ tapering its JGB buying:

https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-CENTRALBANKS/TAPER/bdwpkbmllvm/chart.png

 

10/ SWITZERLAND

The Swiss National Bank does not intervene in domestic bond markets, instead capping the Swiss franc through interventions which came to nearly 110 billion francs ($120 billion) in 2020. The proceeds are used to purchase foreign bonds and equities.

The franc is less over-valued than before but the SNB shows no signs of departing from its interventionist policy and its minus 0.75% interest rate won’t rise any time soon.

 

(Reporting by Sujata Rao, Tommy Wilkes, Saikat Chatterjee and Dhara Ranasinghe in London and Leika Kihara and Daniel Leussink in Tokyo; Editing by David Clarke)

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Yellen Sounds Alarm on China ‘Global Domination’ Industrial Push – Bloomberg

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed China’s use of subsidies to give its manufacturers in key new industries a competitive advantage, at the cost of distorting the global economy, and said she plans to press China on the issue in an upcoming visit.

“There is no country in the world that subsidizes its preferred, or priority, industries as heavily as China does,” Yellen said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday — highlighting “massive” aid to electric-car, battery and solar producers. “China’s desire is to really have global domination of these industries.”

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Opinion: The future economy will suffer if Canada axes the carbon tax – The Globe and Mail

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Open this photo in gallery:

Poilievre holds a press conference regarding his “Axe the Tax” message from the roof a parking garage in St. John’s on Oct.27, 2023.Paul Daly/The Canadian Press

Kevin Yin is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and an economics doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley.

The carbon tax is the single most effective climate policy that Canada has. But the tax is also an important industrial strategy, one that bets correctly on the growing need for greener energy globally and the fact that upstart Canadian companies must rise to meet these needs.

That is why it is such a shame our leaders are sacrificing it for political gains.

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The fact that carbon taxes address a key market failure in the energy industry – polluters are not incentivized to consider the broader societal costs of their pollution – is so well understood by economists that an undergraduate could explain its merits. Experts agree on the effectiveness of the policy for reducing emissions almost as much as they agree on climate change itself.

It is not just that pollution is bad for us. That a patchwork of policies supporting clean industries is proliferating across the United States, China and the European Union means that Canada needs its own hospitable ecosystem for clean-energy companies to set up shop and eventually compete abroad. The earlier we nurture such industries, the more benefits our energy and adjacent sectors can reap down the line.

But with high fixed costs of entry and non-negligible technological hurdles, domestic clean energy is still at a significant disadvantage relative to fossil fuels.

A nuclear energy company considering a reactor project in Canada, for example, must contend with the fact that the upfront investments are enormous, and they may not pay off for years, while incumbent oil and gas firms benefit from low fixed costs, faster economies of scale and established technology.

The carbon tax cannot address these problems on its own, but it does help level the playing field by encouraging demand and capital to flow toward where we need it most. Comparable policies like green subsidies are also useful, but second-best; they weaken the government’s balance sheet and in certain cases can even make emissions worse.

Unfortunately, these arguments hold little sway for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, who called for a vote of no-confidence on the dubious basis that the carbon tax is driving the cost-of-living crisis. Nor is it of much consequence to provincial leaders, who have fought the federal government hard on implementing the tax.

Not only is this attack a misleading characterization of the tax’s impact, it is also a deeply political gambit. Most expected the vote to fail. Yet by centering the next election on the carbon tax debate, Mr. Poilievre is hedging against the possibility of a new Liberal candidate, one who lacks the Trudeau baggage but still holds the line on the tax.

With the reality of inflation, a housing crisis and a general atmosphere of Trudeau-exhaustion, Mr. Poilievre has plenty of ammunition for an election campaign that does not leave our climate and our clean industries at risk. The temptation to do what is popular is ever-present in politics. Leadership is knowing when not to.

Nor are the Liberals innocent on this front. The Trudeau government deserves credit for pushing the tax through in the first place, and for structuring it as revenue-neutral. But the government’s attempt to woo Atlantic voters with the heating oil exemption has eroded its credibility and opened a vulnerable flank for Conservative attacks.

Thus, Canadian businesses are faced with the possibility of a Conservative government which has promised to eliminate the tax altogether. This kind of uncertainty is a treacherous environment for nascent companies and existing companies on the precipice of investing billions of dollars in clean tech and processes, under the expectation that demand for their fossil fuel counterparts are being kept at bay.

The tax alone is not enough; the government and opposition need to show the private sector that it can be consistent about this new policy regime long enough for these green investments to pay off. Otherwise, innovation in these much-needed technologies will remain stagnant in Canada, and markets for clean energy will be dominated by our more forward-thinking competitors.

A carbon tax is not a panacea for our climate woes, but it is central to any attempt to protect a rapidly warming planet and to develop the right businesses for that future. We can only hope that the next generation of Canadian leaders will have a little more vision.

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Business leaders say housing biggest risk to economy: KPMG survey – BNN Bloomberg

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Business leaders see the housing crisis as the biggest risk to the economy, a new survey from KPMG Canada shows.

It found 94 per cent of respondents agreed that high housing costs and a lack of supply are the top risk, and that housing should be a main focus in the upcoming federal budget. The survey questioned 534 businesses.

Housing issues are forcing businesses to boost pay to better attract talent and budget for higher labour costs, agreed 87 per cent of respondents. 

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“What we’re seeing in the survey is that the businesses are needing to pay more to enable their workers to absorb these higher costs of living,” said Caroline Charest, an economist and Montreal-based partner at KPMG.

The need to pay more not only directly affects business finances, but is also making it harder to tamp down the inflation that is keeping interest rates high, said Charest.

High housing costs and interest rates are straining households that are already struggling under high debt, she said.

“It leaves household balance sheets more vulnerable, in particular, in a period of economic slowdown. So it creates areas of vulnerability in the economy.”

Higher housing costs are themselves a big contributor to inflation, also making it harder to get the measure down to allow for lower rates ahead, she said. 

Businesses have been raising the alarm for some time. 

A report out last year from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce also emphasized how much the housing crisis is affecting how well businesses can attract talent. 

Almost 90 per cent of businesses want to see more public-private collaboration to help solve the crisis, the KPMG survey found.

“How can we work bringing all stakeholders, that being governments, not-for-profit organizations and the community and the private sector together, to find solutions to develop new models to deliver housing,” said Charest.

“That came out pretty strong from our survey of businesses.”

The federal government has been working to roll out more funding supports for other levels of government, and introduced measures like a GST rebate for rental housing construction, but it only has limited direct control on the file. 

Part of the federal funding has been to link funding to measures provinces and municipalities adopt that could help boost supply. 

The vast majority of respondents to the KPMG survey supported tax measures to make housing payments more affordable, such as making mortgage interest tax deductible, but also want to maintain the capital gains tax exemption for a primary residence.

The survey of companies was conducted in February using Sago’s Methodify online research platform. Respondents were business owners or executive-level decision makers.

About a third of the leaders are at companies with revenue over $500 million, about half have revenue between $100 million and $500 million, with the rest below. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2024.

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