OTTAWA (Reuters) - A price-driven surge in fertilizer sales helped boost wholesale trade in January by 2.6 percent, over twice as much as expected and offsetting a decline in December, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday.
The data outperformed the market's expectation of a 1 percent gain and neutralized the 2.6 percent downturn in the previous month, revised from a 2.9 percent decline.
Agricultural fertilizers, in demand by emerging economies like China and Brazil amid rising food prices, account for about a quarter of the "other products" sector in which sales shot up by 11.4 percent.
Wholesalers of machinery and equipment, food and building materials were the other main contributors to the robust growth.
In constant dollars, wholesale trade volumes jumped 3.5 percent even though Statscan said the overall sales performance was influenced by a 25 percent rise in fertilizer prices year-on-year as suppliers renegotiated contracts in the month.
Inventories fell for the second straight month, off 0.8 percent. Wholesalers of motor vehicles saw the biggest drop in inventories.
*Statistics Canada report
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/080319/td080319.htm
(Reporting by Louise Egan; Editing by Scott Anderson)
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