Canada’s dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart as concern that a worldwide economic recession may deepen crimped commodity-linked currencies. “There are views of a more prolonged recession and lower global growth and I don’t think that’s going to be particularly positive for commodity currencies,” said Chris Turner, London- based head of foreign-exchange strategy at ING Groep NV. “Any sort of recovery in commodity currencies will be quite shallow and quite short-lived.” The Canadian dollar weakened 0.4 percent to C$1.2599 per U.S. dollar at 7:43 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2551 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 79.37 U.S. cents. ING’s Turner said he recommends buying the U.S. dollar against emerging market and commodity-based currencies, predicting the Canadian dollar will slide to C$1.30 in as little as two weeks. Global economic growth may be weak in emerging and rich countries through 2009 and recovery may not start until next year, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said yesterday in comments posted on the IMF’s Web site and based on an interview broadcast today by the British Broadcasting Corp. He repeated that the IMF later this month will cut its 2.2 percent growth forecast for the global economy in 2009.

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