According to Statistics Canada, following a 2.0 percent decline in June, Canadian manufacturing sales increased 1.6 percent to $71.9 billion in July, led primarily by higher sales of food products (+3.1 percent), petroleum and coal products (+4.6 percent) and transportation equipment (+2.4 percent). Meanwhile, sales of paper (-4.6 percent) and plastics and rubber (-3.4 percent) products decreased the most.
Sales in constant dollars rose 0.9 percent in July, while the industrial product price index increased 0.4 percent month over month.
Total inventory levels declined 0.7 percent to $122.4 billion in July, on lower raw materials (-1.6 percent) and goods in process (-0.9 percent), while finished products (+0.7 percent) increased slightly. Inventories of chemicals contributed the most to the decline, down 4.7 percent month over month in July.
The inventory-to-sales ratio decreased from 1.74 in June to 1.70 in July. 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 declined 1.0 percent to $103.3 billion in July, primarily driven by lower unfilled orders of computer and electronic products (-2.7 percent) and aerospace products and parts (-0.5 percent).
The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector fell from 80.8 percent in June to 77.6 percent in July, on lower production. The decline in capacity utilization rates was most noticeable in the wood product (-9.8 percentage points), transportation equipment (-7.5 percentage points) and machinery (-7.2 percentage points) subsectors.