OTTAWA -- The gears of the Canadian economy outperformed expectations to pump out a 2.4 per cent annual growth rate in late 2014 -- but experts warned Tuesday the economic brunt of the oil slump still lies ahead.

The annualized rate for the final three months of the year came close to the Bank of Canada's 2.5 per cent prediction and beat economists' consensus call of 2.0 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters.

Experts said this latest batch of data, released Tuesday by Statistics Canada, revealed some early signs that cheaper crude has damaged the economy.

The package also arrived one day ahead of a much-anticipated decision: the Bank of Canada's interest rate announcement.

The central bank stunned markets in January when it dropped its key rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.75 per cent. At the time, bank governor Stephen Poloz said the cut would buy insurance amid low crude prices that were "unambiguously negative" for the economy.

Last week, Poloz said the rate decrease bought the bank some time to assess the impact of oil's decline and dropped hints he will stand pat on the rate -- for now.

CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld said Tuesday that, even with the latest Statistics Canada numbers, another rate decrease will depend on whether Poloz wants to wait for more information about the extent of the economic damage from low oil.

"The downward spiral in oil sector capital spending and employment won't really show up until we're likely into even the second quarter of 2015," said Shenfeld, who's expecting Poloz to trim the key rate either Wednesday or at next month's policy meeting.

"So, it's helpful to know where the economy stood before that really hit, but it's not going to tell much about where we're headed."

Led by gains in manufacturing, Tuesday's data release showed the gross domestic product moved upward in December by 0.3 per cent compared to the previous month. That increase beat economist expectations of 0.2 per cent.

But the economy still cooled in the final months of 2014 after registering 3.2 per cent growth for the third quarter, the Statistics Canada report said.

The agency recorded decreases in economic activity in areas such as machinery and equipment investment, communications and exports.

Looking back at 2014, Canada's gross domestic product increased by 2.5 per cent -- slightly stronger than the Bank of Canada's prediction of 2.4 per cent for the year. The country's GDP rose by 2.0 per cent in 2013.

Statistics Canada found the oil and gas extraction sector was among the primary contributors to growth in the last three months of 2014, although the pace dropped off in the last two months of the year.

In the coming months, Shenfeld expects to see the bulk of the oil-price decrease to hurt business capital spending and he predicts cutbacks in this area to be sprinkled through 2015.

Companies in places like energy-rich Alberta have already sliced billions of dollars from their capital spending plans for the year.

Shenfeld pointed to the flat, fourth-quarter nominal GDP rate in the data as an early harbinger of oil-soaked trouble, which could lead to weaker outlooks for government income and employment prospects.

Statistics Canada said the nominal GDP reading for late 2014 represented the slowest growth since the second quarter of 2009 -- during the recession.

TD Bank senior economist Randall Bartlett said the headline number of 2.4 per cent growth for the fourth quarter looks pretty good on the surface, but he also saw problems in the details.

Bartlett said some of the data was supported by inventory accumulation as well as sluggish growth in trade and business investment.

"A pretty weak quarter overall if you look under the hood," he said.

Statistics Canada also released revisions for the GDP readings of the first three quarters of 2014, which revealed the economy was stronger than earlier figures for the second and third quarters.

The second quarter had a revised reading of 3.8 per cent, compared to the previous figure of 3.6, while the third quarter was bumped upwards in the revision to 3.2 per cent from 2.8.