Retail in Canada in May grew by 2%, inflation in June accelerated to 2.5%

Investing.com – Retail sales in Canada in May 2018 grew by 2% compared to the previous month, when their decrease was 0.9%, according to the Statistics Department of the country.

The dynamics of the indicator was much better than the forecasts of analysts, who expected the increase of the index by only 1%.

Sales in May amounted to 50.756 billion Canadian dollars.

In annual terms, retail sales in Canada rose by 3.6% in the month before last.

The dynamics of retail sales without cars was also better than forecasts. In May, sales increased by 1.4% and amounted to 37 billion Canadian dollars. At the same time, experts predicted that the figure will rise by only 0.5%. In the annual ratio, sales without auto increased by 4.1%.

The Statistics also published today inflation data for June

Last month, consumer prices (CPI) in Canada increased by 2.5% in June from June 2017, after rising by 2.2% in May. Analysts had expected inflation to accelerate only to 2.3%.

As to the previous month, prices increased by 0.1%.

Prices for foodstuffs for June increased by 0.7% and by 1.4% in annual terms. Housing prices rose 0.1% and 2%, respectively. Transport costs rose 0.6% in the month and 6.6% in annual terms. Prices for clothing and footwear for the past month dropped by 1.3% and rose by 1.8% year on year. Gasoline fell 2.3% in a month, while gasoline prices jumped 24.6% over the year.