The Monthly
Survey of Manufacturing, released by Statistics Canada on Friday, revealed that
Canadian manufacturing sales increased by 1.1 per cent m-o-m in April to CAD70.80
billion, following an upwardly revised 1.8 per cent m-o-m decline (from -2.1
per cent m-o-m) in March. This marked the largest monthly gain in manufacturing
sales since November 2023 (+1.4 per cent m-o-m).
Economists
had foreseen a rise of 1.2 per cent m-o-m for April.
According to
the survey, 12 of 21 industries demonstrated advances in sales in April, driven
by the primary metals (+4.7 per cent m-o-m), transportation equipment (+4.1 per
cent m-o-m) and chemical products (+4.0 per cent m-o-m) subsectors. On the contrary, the textile mills (-14.3 per cent m-o-m), miscellaneous manufacturing (-9.9
per cent m-o-m), and leather and allied product (-3.0 per cent m-o-m)
industries showed the biggest declines.
Overall, sales
of durable goods jumped 1.6 per cent m-o-m in February, while sales of non-durable
goods climbed 0.6 per cent m-o-m.
Broken down by
province/territory, manufacturing sales increased in 7 administrative divisions
in April, driven by Alberta (+2.5 per cent m-o-m) and Ontario (+0.9 per cent m-o-m). Meanwhile,
sales in Newfoundland and Labrador (-28.0 per cent m-o-m) and New Brunswick (-6.9
per cent m-o-m) saw the largest decreases.
In y-o-y terms,
manufacturing sales were down 1.0
per cent in April.