Canada's November merchandise trade deficit of $0.9 billion was much larger than the $0.1B expected going into the report.
Figures released this morning by Statistics Canada showed this represented an unchanged deficit relative to October which was revised significantly from a previously-reported surplus of $0.1B. The October revision resulted mainly from the decline in exports in that month being revised from 0.3% to 2.3% with greater weakness in the energy and consumer goods components.
The unchanged November deficit resulted from both imports and exports remaining essentially unchanged in dollar terms in the month.
However, the agency said, greater movement was evident within each component. Motor vehicle exports jumped $0.5B (9.6%) though it was offset by small declines in most other components. On the imports side, there were $0.6B declines in both the energy (16.3%) and industrial chemicals (16.2%) components that were offset by small increases in most other import categories led by machinery and equipment rising an encouraging $0.3B (8.5%).
