Canada to see 'pretty terrible' start to '09-panel

TORONTO Jan 7 (Reuters) - The Canadian economy is in for a rough ride through the first half of the year and will see little or no growth in 2009 as the recession takes hold, top economists from Canada's largest banks said on Wednesday.

The economy will also continue to shed thousands of jobs and the unemployment rate will move higher as fallout from the global financial crisis takes its toll.

The comments were made by a panel of leading domestic bank economists at a Economic Club of Canada event in Toronto early on Wednesday.

"The first half of 2009 looks pretty terrible for Canada," said Don Drummond, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Drummond's comments came ahead of key data due on Friday that is expected to show the Canadian economy shed 22,000 in December. That would follow a loss of 70,600 jobs in November.

The slowdown in the global economy which wreaked havoc on financial markets last year is expected to keep weighing on the domestic economy.

Canada sends about 75 percent of its exports to the United States, leaving it extremely vulnerable to the growing economic crisis there.

"There's a lot of bad news to get through over the next six months," said Avery Shenfeld, senior economist at CIBC World Markets.

Warren Jestin, Chief Economist at Bank of Nova Scotia, also said there will be "fairly tough news as we go through the first half of this year."

The comments come less than a month after the Bank of Canada unexpectedly cut its key overnight rate by 75 basis points to a 50-year low of 1.50 percent and said for the first time that the economy was entering a recession.

Craig Wright, chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada, said the Canadian economy will see no growth in 2009.

Data released late in December showed the economy shrank in October, paving the way for a recession that has now been widely predicted by economist and government officials. (Reporting by Frank Pingue; editing by Rob Wilson)