Canada manufacturing sales influenced by price increases
- Prior month -0.8% (was expecting -1.0%)
- manufacturing sales -0.9% vs. -0.9% estimate. The decline is the 3rd consecutive monthly decline
- 12 of 21 industries saw declines led by primary metals -9.9%, petroleum and coal products -5.3%, and furniture and related products -11.2%
- food rose 2.5%, motor vehicle parts increase 10.7% in paper products increase by 8.1%
- sales in constant dollars increase 0.6% the 2nd consecutive monthly increase
- industrial product price index declined -2.1% for the month
- total inventories increase 1.2% on higher inventories and 14 of 21 industries. Higher prices have been the main contributor to the increase in inventory levels since beginning of the Covid pandemic. In current dollars total inventories rose 35.3 and raw material rose 48.2% vs. pre-pandemic levels of in February 2020. The real terms the increases were only 6.9% and 10.0% respectively.
- Inventory to sales ratio increased from 1.61 to 1.65 months
- capacity utilization decreased from 79.6% in June to 76.9%