February dip reinforces wholesale downtrend
OTTAWA–Wholesale sales reversed course in February as declines in several sectors erased all of January’s gains.
Sales by Canadian wholesalers fell 1.8 per cent in February to $42.6 billion, Statistics Canada said yesterday.
Most sectors reported lower sales, with the largest decline (4 per cent) in the automotive sector.
Also notable were drops in the "other products" sector (down 3.4 per cent), which includes agricultural chemicals, recycled materials, paper products and non-agricultural products, as well as personal and household goods (down 2.4) and building materials (down 2.2).
The only bright spots were the food, beverage and tobacco products sector (up 0.7 per cent), buoyed by a turnaround in alcohol and tobacco sales, and the farm products sector (up 4.3), recovering from a weak start to the year free instant credit score estimator.
Wholesale sales have been trending gradually downward since July 2007, largely because of a significant drop in the automotive sector.
When measured in constant dollars, which removes price change effects to provide an indicator of volume, sales were 2 per cent lower in February compared with the previous month.
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