The Monthly
Survey of Manufacturing, issued by Statistics Canada on Wednesday, showed that
Canadian manufacturing sales declined by 1.3 per cent m-o-m in August to
CAD69.45 billion, following a downwardly revised 1.1 per cent m-o-m rise (from
+1.4 per cent m-o-m) in July.
Economists
had forecast a drop of 1.5 per cent m-o-m for August.
According to
the survey, 12 of 21 industries registered decreases in sales in August, led by
the leather and allied product (-47.3 per cent m-o-m), primary metal (-6.4 per
cent m-o-m), textile product mills (-5.9 per cent m-o-m), furniture and related
product (-4.2 per cent m-o-m), petroleum and coal product (-3.7 per cent m-o-m)
and electrical equipment, appliance and component (-3.7 per cent m-o-m) subsectors. On the contrary, the apparel manufacturing (+4.2 per cent
m-o-m), wood product (+3.8 per cent m-o-m), and non-metallic mineral product (+3.4
per cent m-o-m) industries recorded the biggest gains.
Overall, sales
of durable goods fell 1.5 per cent m-o-m in August, while sales of non-durable
goods dropped 1.1 per cent m-o-m.
Broken down by
province/territory, manufacturing sales reduced in 8 administrative divisions
in August, with the biggest negative contribution coming from Alberta (-3.3 per
cent m-o-m) and Ontario (-0.6 per cent m-o-m). Meanwhile, sales in Prince
Edward Island (+2.3 per cent m-o-m) increased the most.
In y-o-y terms,
manufacturing sales plummeted by 4.4 per cent in August.