Lower sales in the agricultural supplies industry contributed to the decline, the federal agency said in a report earlier this week.
But on a year-over-year basis, wholesale trade actually increased 3.0 per cent seasonally adjusted from $2.25 billion in September 2014, the report said. Doug Elliott of Sask Trends Monitor noted that the agricultural supplies segment is up 49 per cent on a year-over-year, unadjusted basis.
On the other hand, machinery and equipment sales are down 21 per cent during the same period, which is offsetting the gain in sales of agricultural supplies, like chemicals and fertilizer, Elliott said.
“My guess that the agricultural supplies going up is an accounting problem. If it’s a one-time accounting change, it will go away and we won’t have to worry about it in a couple of months. But machinery and equipment sales are down, and that’s a real.”
NatiopStatistics Canada says wholesale sales edged down 0.1 per cent to $55.2 billion in September.
Source : LeaderPost