The Monthly
Survey of Manufacturing, issued by
Statistics Canada on Friday, showed that Canadian manufacturing sales dropped
by 2.8 per cent m-o-m in April to CAD69.59 billion, following an unrevised 1.4 per cent m-o-m fall in March. This marked the sharpest
monthly decrease in manufacturing sales since October 2023 (-3.1 per cent
m-o-m).
Economists
had forecast a reduction of 2.0 per cent m-o-m for April.
According to
the survey, 15 of 21 industries posted declines in sales in April, led by the petroleum
and coal product (-10.9 per cent m-o-m), textile product mills (-10.3 per cent
m-o-m), furniture and related product -9.9 per cent m-o-m), and apparel
manufacturing (-6.7 per cent m-o-m) subsectors. On the contrary, the leather
and allied product (+5.1 per cent m-o-m), chemical (+1.7 per cent m-o-m), and electrical
equipment, appliance and component (+1.5 per cent m-o-m) industries demonstrated
the biggest advances.
Overall, sales
of durable goods dropped 2.2 per cent m-o-m in April, while sales of
non-durable goods declined 3.0 per cent m-o-m.
In y-o-y terms,
manufacturing sales decreased 2.7 per cent in April.