Canadian international merchandise trade, January 2019

Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 05:01

Canada's exports were up 2.9% in January, mainly on the strength of higher crude oil export prices. Imports rose 1.5%, led by higher aircraft imports. As a result, Canada's merchandise trade deficit with the world narrowed from $4.8 billion in December to $4.2 billion in January.

First increase in exports since July 2018

Total exports rose 2.9% to $47.6 billion in January, the first increase since July 2018. Export prices were up 2.0%, while volumes increased 0.9%. Higher exports of energy products and metal and non-metallic mineral products were partially offset by lower exports of farm, fishing and intermediate food products. Excluding energy products, exports rose 1.2% in January.

After five consecutive monthly decreases, exports of energy products rose 14.0% in January to $7.1 billion. Crude oil exports (+36.5%) drove the gain, on the strength of a 36.0% increase in prices. The price of crude oil exports declined sharply in the second half of 2018, falling by more than 50% from July to December. Despite the increase in January, crude oil export prices were 40.1% below the peak in July.

After decreasing 7.4% in December, metal and non-metallic mineral products rose 11.9% to $5.6 billion in January, the strongest monthly advance since March 2014. The increase was largely due to higher exports of refined gold to the United Kingdom, as well as an increase in gold transfers to Hong Kong within the banking sector in January. For the section as a whole, volumes were up 15.3% while prices fell 2.9%.

Partially offsetting these increases were lower exports of farm, fishing and intermediate food products, down 8.1% to $3.1 billion. Lower exports of other crop products (-25.4%) contributed the most to the decrease, mainly due to lower exports of soybeans to China. This comes on the heels of record exports of Canadian soybeans to China in 2018, a peak that coincided with strong decreases in US exports of soybeans to China...

This has been excerpted from a 27 March 2019 release by Statistics Canada.