According to Statistics Canada, Canadian manufacturing sales increased 0.3 percent to $71.4 billion in December, with gains in 12 of 21 subsectors, mainly driven by higher sales of petroleum and coal (+3.4 percent), food products (+1.9 percent), and primary metals (+3.9 percent). Meanwhile, sales of motor vehicle parts (-5.0 percent) recorded the largest decline.
Total inventories held steady at $119.8 billion in December. Higher goods in process (+1.1 percent) offset decreases in inventories of finished products (-0.9 percent) and raw materials (-0.1 percent) largely contributed to value in December. From an industry perspective, the primary metal (-2.7 percent) and food product (-2.6 percent) subsections saw the largest declines, while chemical product inventories posted the biggest gain (+3.5 percent). Total inventories in constant dollars were unchanged in December.
The inventory-to-sales ratio was unchanged 1.69 in December from November. This ratio measures the time, in months, that would be required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.
The total value of unfilled orders rose 1.4 percent to $106.8 billion in December.
The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector decreased from 79.9 percent in November to 76.0 percent in December.
Capacity utilization rates decreased in food (-3.7 percentage points), transportation equipment (-7.0 percentage points) and primary metal (-4.3 percentage points) subsectors. The losses were partly offset by higher capacity utilization rates in beverage and tobacco manufacturing (+2.5 percent).