CIBC predicts low growth, low interest rates

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Jun 20, 2012 at 12:41 pm in Business, News by tyler.king

There’s good and bad news on the economy from CIBC today.

The bad news is that economic growth across the world will be slowing down.

CIBC economist Benjamin Tal says the good news for most people is that historically low interest rates will stay low into 2014.

“If you have a heavy mortgage debt, that’s good news for you,” he said. “But for the economy as a whole, this is not good news.”

He says the issue is that consumers will likely focus on paying off their debt instead of spending more to get the economy back on track.

“Consumer credit is now rising at the slowest rate since 1992, and even mortgage credit is rising at the slowest rate since 2002,” he said. “Interest rates are low – but our consumers are not so hungry anymore, and that’s something that will limit consumption growth over the next two to three years.”

Published June 20, 2012

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