Shane Solly: Harbour Asset Management spokesperson on Canada rescinding digital services tax

Canada recently scrapped its digital services tax targeting US technology firms - just hours before it was due to take effect. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump are set to re-open trade talks in order to agree on a deal by July 21, according to Canada's finance ministry.

Harbour Asset Management's Shane Solly explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shane solely harbor asset management with me. Now heys, Shane,
get out here there. Okay, So what's happened with the
Canadian government and the US government.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, so on Friday atternnon mister Trump said, look it's
on social media. We're going to stop, going to terminate
trade discussions because the Canadians are going to put in
place a digital services tax on Monday. Well funny other
then this afternoon is on time. The Canadian government rescinded
the planned digital services tax on the basis they're going
to try and reopen trade talks. In fact, they've actually

(00:28):
come out and said, look, we want to have a
trade deal with US by the twenty fifth of July.
And of course this clock's ticking here for the July
at night tariff negotiations. So there's a bit of a
deadline out there. We expect perhaps some other countries do
some of my things, UK, France, Spain, They've all got
these types of things they want to get back onside
with the White House. So capital markets, we all think

(00:48):
the can is going to get kicked down the road,
but the dealers get extended. But you know there will
be some viotority around it nonetheless.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, and so what happened with the US share market
that it hit those highs.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, So we hit all time highs on Friday. You know,
it's a bit of a combination of these geopolitical rests
falling some more positive trade tarf deal rhetoric, particularly between
US and China and Europe. There's a bit of a
setup going on there. And also the US Fed a
reserve rate cut hope, So a bit of a combination
there that that opposite, we had some weaker US data

(01:19):
out on Friday. Growth indicators down and inflation indicator has
been quite stubborn. So there's been a few offsets, but
net net positive outcome.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
How's our economy looking at the moment?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Interesting day to day. We had the AZ Business Confidence
that indicator out for June that was actually showed a
really strong bounce from very low levels. But against that,
we've had employment data which is this actual job growth
is pretty sluggish, which won't be a surprise for some
people out there. It's sort of drop into the AZ
Business confidence number. It actually went to forty six point three.
That means the economy is still below an expansion level.

(01:53):
But the really important thing here is a big bounce
and own activity. This is business are saying we think
we're going to get better. That up to forty point
nine from last month month thirty four point eight. And
the really important thing here the government might be keen
to see that there's been a big lift in investment
intentions up from nine points to nine point nine. The
accept the leading the way. Unfortunately, as I say, these

(02:15):
job growth numbers for May pretty sluggish, only up point
one of a percent month or month, which means we're
actually down one point five percent for the year to
two point three five million, So pretty choppy out the
head as we know. But the indicators there's a bit
of sunshine we are with potentially on the custom of
the economic expansion.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, I'm so happy to hear at Shane. Thank you
very much, appreciate it. Shane Soley, Harbor Asset Management.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
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