Canada's economy to grow in '06

The Canadian economy will likely see just over 3 percent growth in 2006, private-sector economists told Finance Minister Ralph Goodale on Friday.

" The consensus GDP forecast is that Canada's going to have another year of reasonable economic growth, in fact another couple of years ... just a little over 3 percent," Avery Shenfeld, senior economist at CIBC World Markets, told Reuters after a meeting with Goodale.

Other economists at the session said estimates for growth next year ranged between 2.8 percent and 3.1 percent. None would provide the government's working forecast.

"I don't think the risks are symmetrical. There's a much greater risk of the number coming in lower and probably very little probability of it coming in higher than 3.1 percent," said Hodgson, who forecast a C$10 billion ($8.5 billion) federal surplus in the current fiscal year.

" We're going to have growth that's about equal to our long-term potential, which is about 3 percent," said Dale Orr of Global Insight.

Canada is the only member of the Group of Seven rich industrial nations to regularly run budget surpluses. Its latest surplus for 2004-05 was just C$1.6 billion, down from the previous year's C$9.1 billion

The Conference Board of Canada, one of a handful of private sector forecasters used by Ottawa to crunch its revenue data to provide surplus estimates, is forecasting C$10 billion will remain in government coffers by March 31, the end of Ottawa's fiscal year.