Canadian international merchandise trade, March 2020

In March, despite Canadian borders remaining open for goods, both imports and exports decreased notably, as the impact of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Canada became evident. With a full month of physical distancing policies in place in April, merchandise trade values are expected to decrease more severely next month.

Canada's merchandise exports fell 4.7% to $46.3 billion in March, the lowest level since January 2018. Total imports declined 3.5% to $47.7 billion, a level not observed since October 2017. Both exports and imports were down almost 10% on a year-over-year basis. Canada's trade deficit widened from $894 million in February to $1.4 billion in March.

In real (or volumes) terms, March exports decreased 4.8% and imports were down 5.8%...

This has been excerpted from a 5 May 2020 release by Statistics Canada.