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Canada Wholesale Trade Flat in May at C$90 Billion But Tops Expectations

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Canadian wholesale sales were flat in May at C$90.0 billion after a 1.4% gain in April, with declines in four of seven subsectors, the country's statistical agency said Wednesday.

The largest declines came from food, beverage and tobacco as well as personal and household goods, which were partly offset by a jump in non-agricultural chemical and allied product sales, Statistics Canada said in a statement.

The trade data excludes oil, oil products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain. Compared with May of the previous year, wholesale trade was up 7.4%.

MUFG said before the release of the data that the consensus expected wholesale sales to dip by 0.7% on the month.

Wholesale inventories fell 1.1% month over month in May to C$137.7 billion, added StatsCan. The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures the time in months required to exhaust inventories if sales remain at current levels, improved slightly, declining to 1.53 from 1.55 in April.

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