HOUSTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The latest U.S. manufacturing and trade statistics, released on Tuesday, show that business inventories for March hit 1.93 trillion U.S. dollars, level with last month's data.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of 1,929.6 billion dollars, virtually unchanged from February 2018, but 3.8 percent percent up from that in March 2017.
The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers' shipments for March, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes, was estimated at 1,438.3 billion dollars, up 0.5 percent from February 2018 and 6.4 percent from March 2017.
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of March was 1.34. The March 2017 ratio was 1.38.
