According to Statistics Canada, prices for products manufactured in Canada, as measured by the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI), fell 2.3 percent in April, mostly because of lower prices for refined petroleum products. Prices for raw materials purchased by manufacturers operating in Canada, as measured by the Raw Materials Price Index (RMPI), decreased 13.4 percent, primarily because of a drop in crude oil prices.
The IPPI fell 2.3 percent on a month-over-month basis in April. This was a fourth consecutive monthly decrease and the largest decline since December 2008 (-2.6 percent). Although the IPPI was down in April, the decreases were isolated. Of the 21 major commodity groups, 14 were up, 5 were down and 2 were unchanged.
Year over year, the IPPI fell 6.0 percent, mainly because of lower prices for energy and petroleum products (-44.8 percent).
The RMPI fell 13.4 percent in April, following a sharp decline of 15.6 percent in March. This was the fourth consecutive monthly decrease. Of the six major commodity groups, four were down and two were up.
The decline in the RMPI from March was led by lower prices for crude energy products (-42.0 percent), especially conventional crude oil (-44.6 percent), which posted its largest monthly drop since the beginning of this series in January 1981.
Compared with April 2019, the RMPI decreased 36.7 percent, primarily because of lower prices for crude energy products (-72.8 percent).