Economy

March Manufacturing in Canada up 0.4%

May 15, 2014

The Canada Monthly Survey of Manufacturing, March 2014 was just released indicating a 0.4 percent improvement in manufacturing sales in March.

Higher sales were seen in food, machinery and plastics & rubber, but were offset by declines in paper, petroleum and coal products. Two thirds of the manufacturing sector had increased sales in March with sales of both durable and non-durable goods increasing 4 percent.

Primary metal sales increased to CAN $3,846 million, up 0.2 percent from February and 0.9 percent year over year. Fabricated metal product sales totaled CAN $2,850 million, an increase of 1.7 percent from February and 1.9 percent from March 2013.

Transportation equipment in March showed no change from February but was up 4.9 percent y/y. Machinery sales increased 3.3 percent from the previous month and 7.6 percent from March 2013.

New orders fell 19.9 percent to $50.2 billion in March. Unfilled orders declined by 0.8 percent following a 15.4 percent gain in February. The decline was attributed mostly to the drop in orders for transportation equipment which represented almost three-quarters of total orders.

Inventories increased 0.2 percent during the month. The inventory to sales ratio (time required to exhaust inventories at current sales rate) was unchanged in March.