Canada: Manufacturing sales edged lower in February - RBC

Nathan Janzen, senior economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, notes that the Canada’s headline nominal sales slipped 0.2% lower after a 0.8% January increase.

Key Quotes

“The drop in volume sales in February left the measure down slightly (0.2%) from a year-ago – led by a pullback in the motor vehicle sector.  Still, bad weather may be partly to blame.  A record number of work hours were lost due to weather in February.”

“Headline GDP growth is still likely to be soft in Q1 at around 1% but also still in part due to transitory disruptions to oil production and bad weather effects, both of which should reverse going forward.”