OTTAWA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Canada's manufacturing sales rose 0.9 percent to 54.2 billion Canadian dollars (about 42.9 billion U.S. dollars) in December 2020, according to Statistics Canada on Monday.
Sales were up in nine of 21 industries, led by the wood product, transportation equipment, and petroleum and coal product industries.
On a quarterly basis, sales rose 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter, while manufacturing sales in volume terms edged down 0.2 percent.
Wood product sales jumped 8.3 percent to a record high of 3.7 billion Canadian dollars in December, driven by higher prices.
Petroleum and coal product sales rose for the third consecutive month, up 4.7 percent to 4.2 billion Canadian dollars in December due to strong energy and petroleum product prices, which soared 9 percent.
Following four consecutive monthly gains, sales of chemicals fell 4.5 percent to 4.2 billion Canadian dollars in December on lower sales of pharmaceutical and medical products.
Sales also fell in the plastics and rubber products, computer and electronic products and miscellaneous industries.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world, and those changes were reflected by manufacturing sales falling to their lowest levels in Canada since 2015.
Canada's total manufacturing sales dropped 11.4 percent to 610.6 billion Canadian dollars in 2020, largely because of lower sales in the transportation equipment industry which plunged 23.5 percent and petroleum and coal product industry which plummeted 37.4 percent.
In fact, these two industries alone accounted for three-quarters of the total decrease in manufacturing sales in Canada in 2020.
Overall, sales were down in 17 of 21 manufacturing industries. Enditem
