B.C.’s wholesale trade has climbed 3.5% since August 2009 representing one of the lowest year-over-year increases across the country, according to Statistics Canada.
In August, B.C. reported $3.97 billion in wholesale merchants’ sales compared with $3.83 billion for the same month in 2009.
That 3.5% increase trails a 16.9% gain in Alberta year-over-year and 30.2% and 64.2% increases in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut respectively.
Only Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba posted lower year-over-year sales increases than B.C.
Nationally, the year-over-year gain was 7.5%.
Still, wholesale merchants’ sales in B.C. were up 0.5% in August when compared with July.
For Canada, wholesale trade was up 1.2% for the same period.
Statistics Canada said that increase was the largest month-over-month jump since January.
In August, Canada’s wholesale trade topped $44.5 billion, much of it led by higher sales in machinery, equipment and the supplies subsector.