Bring on 2012, says Canadian Businesses

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement on Thursday that he’s expecting the world to go into a “full-blown global recession” by 2012. And while that news is usually enough to have any Canadian business owner running for their calculators, and trying to figure out how they can markup prices to account for the loss, Canadian business owners are doing the exact opposite. In fact, most Canadian business owners believe that the year 2012 will be a prosperous one, global recession or not.
Over half, 51% to be exact, of Canadian business owners believe that 2012 won’t only be a successful year, but that it will be even more successful than 2011. This comes from a BMO Bank of Montreal study, which also showed that only 13% of business owners in our country think that the year will be a worse one. That a very small percentage, showing that even with commercial mortgages going up this year, and expected to go higher next year, Canadian business owners are an optimistic bunch and nothing’s going to keep them down.
Optimistic, indeed. Even with the shaky global economy (and with everything going on in Greece, the rest of Europe, the States, and Iceland, “shaky” is a very generous term,) the BMO study also showed that 54% of business owners will still expand their operations and staff into foreign markets. Businesses gave their reasoning of “better business practices, a stronger economy, and an improved market,” for believing that their businesses will do better next year than they did this one. But, isn’t it strange that with such economic downturn in the rest of the world, that so many business owners would be looking to send their operations overseas, or across the border? Perhaps that’s pushing the optimism envelope a bit too far.
Perhaps most business owners are looking around their own neighbourhoods when forecasting a better year. This year after all, was one of the best ones the Canadian economy has seen since the global crash of 2008 and interest rates on commercial mortgages, though they may have spiked slightly this year, still remain at all-time lows and are predicted to remain there until at least 2013. And, even outsourcing and off-shoring could be a big advantage to Canadian companies in the coming year, as labour costs could remain low in other countries while they try to stabilize themselves once again.
With so many reasons, do you agree that Canadian businesses have reason to ring in the New Year with a bang? Or, do you think they’re being slightly too optimistic in their forecasts?