Higher sales were recorded in five subsectors in June, representing 86 percent of wholesale sales.
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Prices for seven of the eight major components in the price index were up from a year ago with only the transportation index that includes gasoline showing a decline. Market expectations were for a 1% increase, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada. In…
Consumer prices were up in nine provinces compared with a year ago as Saskatchewan posted the largest increase compared with a year ago at 1.9 per cent. Ontario gained 1.5 per cent.
The motor vehicle and parts subsector led the increase as the group increased 3.0 per cent to $10.2 billion in June, more than offsetting its drop in May.
Prince Edward Island saw prices drop 0.1 per cent to post its eighth consecutive year-over-year decrease.
The Bank of Canada has cut interest rates twice this year to prop up the struggling economy and sees the effects of a weaker currency and some sector-specific factors as temporarily boosting the core rate.
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Electronics and appliance store sales rose 9.4 percent, the fastest in records back to 1991, in a month where new regulations limited the duration of mobile phone contracts.
