Canada's central bank maintained its key lending rate at 0.5 percent Wednesday in hopes of bolstering lagging business investment, while forecasting an uptick in global growth this year and next.

Financial market volatility and "heightened concerns" about a lack of momentum in the Canadian export-driven economy "appears to be abating," the Bank of Canada said, but the oil rout continues to dampen growth and investments in oil producing nations such as Canada, which is ranked the fifth largest oil producer in the world.