ottawa april 12 reuters  the bank of canada on wednesday increased its 2023 growth forecast to 14 up from the 10 it predicted in january and indicated it saw less risk of a recession this year in its quarterly monetary policy report the central bank also said inflation should drop quickly to around 3 by mid2023 but would not hit the 2 target until the end of 2024 in january it merely said inflation would fall to 2 in 2024 the bank said annualised growth would hit 23 in the first quarter before averaging less than 10 for the rest of 2023 quarterly growth is expected to be weak through the rest of the year it then picks up gradually through 2024 it said the bank dropped language saying the chances of a couple of quarters with slightly negative growth were the roughly the same as a couple of quarters with slightly positive growth the bank cut the 2024 growth forecast to 13 from 18 in january and said the economy would expand by 25 in 2025 it said the growth of potential output was expected to increase to 23 in 2023 from 14 in 2022 and estimated that the nominal neutral rate of interest lay between a range of 2 to 3 unchanged from its assessment in april 2022