One of the cornerstones of the Canadian economy demonstrated signs of weakness in March, according to figure released Tuesday morning by Statistics Canada.
The agency reported that manufacturing sales decreased 0.9% to $50.0 billion in March, a second consecutive monthly decline. The decline in March mainly reflected lower sales of transportation equipment and primary metals.
StatsCan goes on to say that sales were down in 16 of 21 industries, representing 88.3% of Canadian manufacturing.
In constant dollar terms, sales were up 0.1% in March, indicating that higher volumes of manufactured goods were sold. Prices in the manufacturing sector were down 0.6% in March according to the Industrial Product Price Index.
