Bank of Canada, the Canadian central bank, unveiled its annual report of 2009 on Wednesday, saying economic recovery had begun by the end of last year.
The bank said in the report that Canada's economy had fallen into recession in the autumn of 2008, due to the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression triggered by the United States.
It also noted that "in response to extraordinary policy actions taken by authorities in major economies, the global and Canadian economies began to recover in the second half of the year," although in a more modest way.
The bank said that it "supported a return to economic expansion " in the face of global recession through aggressive monetary policy action, and it also "worked with domestic and international partners to contribute to the redesign of the international financial system," and provided significant liquidity to Canada's financial system.
The bank reduced its policy interest rate to a historical low of 0.25 percent and, conditional on the outlook for inflation, committed to hold it at that level until the end of the second quarter of 2010./.