The Monthly
Survey of Manufacturing, published by Statistics Canada on Monday, revealed
that Canadian manufacturing sales rose by 0.4 per cent m-o-m in May to CAD71.45
billion, following an upwardly revised 1.4 per cent m-o-m gain (from +1.2per
cent m-o-m) in April.
Economists
had predicted an increase of 0.3 per cent m-o-m for May.
According to
the survey, 15 of 21 industries posted gains in sales in May, led by the textile
mills (+20.8 per cent m-o-m), leather and allied product (+7.3 per cent m-o-m)
and paper manufacturing (+5.5 per cent m-o-m) subsectors. On the contrary, the textile product mills (-9.3 per cent
m-o-m), fabricated metal product (-2.9 per cent m-o-m), and beverage and
tobacco product (-2.7 per cent m-o-m) industries recorded the biggest decreases.
Overall, sales
of durable goods went up 0.5 per cent m-o-m in May, while sales of non-durable
goods grew 0.3 per cent m-o-m.
Broken down by
province/territory, manufacturing sales increased in 7 administrative divisions
in May, with the biggest positive contribution coming from Quebec (+1.2 per
cent m-o-m) and Ontario (+0.5 per cent m-o-m). Meanwhile, sales in Saskatchewan (-13.1
per cent m-o-m) and Prince Edward Island (-11.5 per cent m-o-m) demonstrated the
largest declines.
In y-o-y terms,
manufacturing sales plunged 1.8 per cent in May.