Wholesale sales — excluding petroleum, petroleum products and other hydrocarbons, and excluding oilseed and grain — rose3.2% to $84.7billion in June, compared with the same month one year earlier, Statistics Canada said Friday.
In volume terms, wholesale sales increased 0.6% in June.
Feedback from wholesalers showed that Canada-U.S. trade tensions impacted 33.6% of businesses in during the month. Wholesales were negatively impacted in all seven subsectors, with the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector reporting the highest percentage of impacted businesses (38.3%). The most cited impacts were price increases (22.6%) and a change in demand for products (13.8%).
Six provinces reported higher month-over-month wholesale sales in June, led by Quebec (1.9% to $15.3 billion) and Ontario (0.7% to $43.8 billion). Meanwhile, Alberta saw a decline in wholesale sales (-2.9% to $9.2 billion).
The positive numbers follow a 1.7% quarter-over-quarter drop in wholesale sales in Q2.
In the second quarter, six of the seven subsectors reported lower sales, led by the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector (-2.5% to $54.6 billion) and the building material and supplies subsector (-3.4% to $35.4 billion).
Still, wholesale sales in the second quarter were 1.7% higher compared with the same quarter one year earlier.