The Financial Post reports in its Thursday, Aug. 1, edition that the Canadian economy performed slightly better than expected in May, amid rising expectations for the Bank of Canada to make further cuts in interest rates this year. The Post's Naimul Karim writes that gross domestic product rose by 0.2 per cent in May after a 0.3 per cent increase in April, according to Statistics Canada. The agency also estimated that GDP for June grew by 0.1 per cent, an advance estimate that may be revised. Taking the advanced estimate into account, Statscan expects the country's GDP to grow by 0.5 per cent in the second quarter after growing by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter. The exact numbers will be available on Aug. 30. Desjardins's Royce Mendes says: "When measured in per-capita terms, the second quarter advance in GDP still looked quite weak. As a result, we don't think this data will derail a third consecutive rate cut in September." Oxford Economics Group economist Tony Sillo says the advanced estimate implies a 0.5-per-cent growth rate in GDP in the second quarter, but there is a downside risk since Statscan's preliminary estimates have overstated growth in quarterly GDP in five of the past six quarters.