According to the figures released on Wednesday morning by Statistics Bureau, Canada's trade data for May did not meet economists' expectations showing a deficit of C$3.28bn compared with an expected number equalling C$2.6bn. The April deficit, in turn, was also revised sharply higher to C$3.32bn versus the original C$2.9bn. It is worth to point out, that the April and May deficits were the highest on record. Overall exports declined 0.7% on the month to C$41.1bn with a 2.3% drop in volumes as well as there was a 3.4% annual plunge in export values. However, there was an advance in energy exports of 7.1% in June as crude oil prices rose sharply with oil exports being slightly higher. Exports went down in 7 out of 11 categories with lower shipments across most industrial sectors including industrial machinery exports, which slide by 4.9% on the month. Imports, in turn, lost 0.8% slipping to C$44.4bn with a 0.9% drop in volumes, mainly due to a slide in aircraft imports.
In the meantime, the wider than forecasted trade deficit will tend to provoke a downward adjustment to GDP estimates as well as there will be important overall concerns surrounding the trade performance.
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