target will be slow, and risks remain. overall, our outlook for both growth and inflation is largely unchanged from when we were here in october. economic growth is expected to be modest in 2024 - weak in the first half before picking up around the middle of the year and rising to about 2½ % in 2025. with downward and upward forces largely offsetting in the near term, cpi inflation is expected to remain close to 3 % over the first half of this year. it is then expected to ease to about 2½ % by year end and return to target in 2025. let me give you a sense of governing council's monetary policy deliberations. at our decision last week, there was a clear consensus to maintain our policy rate at 5 %. we also discussed where we see the economy and inflation going and what that could mean for monetary policy going forward. what came through in the deliberations is that governing council's discussion about future policy is shifting from whether monetary policy is restrictive enough to how long to maintain the current restrictive stance. that doesn't mean we have ruled out further policy rate increases. if new developments push inflation higher, we may still need to raise rates. but what it does mean is that if the economy evolves broadly in line with the projection we published last week, i expect future discussions will be about how long we maintain the policy rate at 5 %. governing council is concerned about the persistence of underlying inflation. we want to see inflationary pressures continue to ease and clear downward momentum in underlying inflation. we also discussed the risks to the economy and inflation. we are trying to balance the risks of over - and under - tightening. we don't want to cool the economy more than necessary. but we don't want canadians to have to continue to live with elevated inflation either. we remain focused on a number of indicators of underlying inflationary pressures. we need to see further and sustained easing of core inflation. with the economy now looking to be in modest excess supply, demand pressures have abated. corporate pricing behaviour has continued to normalize. at the same time, measures of near - term inflation expectations and wage growth suggest that underlying inflationary pressures remain. let me conclude. we've come a long way from the inflation peak in 2022. monetary policy is working, and we need to continue to let it work. we remain resolute in our commitment to return inflation to the 2 % target. with that summary

us that companies always find ways to cope and innovate in the face of such challenges. we want to know how companies are dealing with uncertainty and the upheaval in the global trading system. we want to know if you are rethinking the value chains that you built in the past. if so, we want to know what kinds of alternative arrangements you are putting in place and what that may mean for productivity and prices. clearly, the canadian economy is not immune to global developments. we are watching for signs that adverse impacts of trade disputes are being felt beyond the export sectors that are directly affected. so far, all of the trade actions have been against firms in the goods sector, and the service sector has remained relatively resilient in most countries. we are looking to see the extent to which weakness from manufacturing may be spreading to services, employment, consumer spending or housing. in this regard, the most recent data have been mixed, so we continue to monitor the situation closely. 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches by the way, next week we will begin publishing a regular report about the bank ’ s quarterly canadian survey of consumer expectations. from now on, we will publish this alongside our current report on the business outlook survey. taken together with data from our senior loan officer survey, these give a more complete picture of the expectations of consumers, firms and lenders as an input into our interest rate decisions. labour and housing markets a second area we will be watching closely is the intersection between canada ’ s labour and housing markets. our labour market has shown a healthy trend over the past year. even though growth in new jobs seems to have slowed very recently, wage growth has continued to strengthen. we will be watching the data carefully to see how much of the recent moderation persists. in this respect, it is important to understand that labour market conditions vary quite a bit across different regions. meanwhile, population growth has increased recently, driven by immigration. this, too, has varied across regions. provinces such as british columbia, ontario and quebec, where job growth has been strong, continue to attract the bulk of new immigrants. this combination of job growth and rising population has supported a rebound in housing over the past year. should this housing rebound continue, we will be watching for signs of extrapolative expectations returning to certain major housing markets — in other words, froth. the fact is, the fundamental demand for housing appears to be outpacing our ability to build