BCREA Nowcast

The BCREA Nowcast estimate of provincial economic growth (expressed as year-over-year growth in real GDP) for December 2022 is 2.8 per cent. For comparison, year-over-year growth in the Canadian economy in December was 2.3 per cent. The preliminary estimate for January shows year-over-year growth was 3.3 per cent. For all of 2022, BC Real GDP growth as estimated by the Nowcast was 4.7 per cent, with a likely range of between 4.2 and 5.2 per cent based on the historical mean average error. The largest over-estimate for the Nowcast was 0.8 percentage points in 2008 and the largest under-estimate was 1.8 in 2002.

Growth of provincial GDP is a key indicator of economic activity, but provincial GDP data is only available annually and with a considerable delay. That's why we developed the BCREA Nowcast – a tool for tracking monthly growth in the BC Economy. The Nowcast compiles monthly economic data into one easy to understand number, expressed as the year-over-year growth in the BC economy.

As the underlying economic data is released with a one- or two-month lag, our estimates for monthly growth will also lag real-time by two months (e.g., estimated growth in January will be published at the end of March). There are no adjustments to the model estimate except for those due to revisions to the underlying data.

For more information, please contact:
Brendon Ogmundson
Chief Economist
Direct: 604.742.2796
Mobile: 604.505.6793
Email: [email protected]