Machinery and equipment price indexes, first quarter 2012

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The Machinery and Equipment Price Index (MEPI) decreased 1.0% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. The import component was down 1.7% over this period, while the domestic component was up 0.1%.

All industries posted decreases in prices of machinery and equipment purchased in the first quarter. The largest contributor to the total MEPI quarterly decline was finance, insurance and real estate (-1.5%), in which the finance and insurance sub-component declined 1.3% and the real estate and rental and leasing services sub-component was down 1.7%. The second-largest contributor to the quarterly decline was manufacturing (-0.9%).

On a commodity basis, most commodities posted price decreases in the first quarter. Among these, automobiles excluding passenger vans (-2.7%) and other industry specific machinery (-1.2%) contributed the most to the quarterly decrease of the total MEPI.

The Canadian dollar appreciated 2.2% against the US dollar in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. Variations in exchange rates can have a strong influence on the MEPI given the high weight that imported machinery and equipment has on the index.

Compared with the first quarter of 2011, the total MEPI increased 2.6%, with the import component rising 3.7% and the domestic component up 1.0%. The movement in the import component was partly influenced by the year-over-year change in the Canadian dollar (-1.5%) against the US dollar.

Note to readers

This release presents data that are not seasonally adjusted and the indexes published are subject to a four-quarter revision period after dissemination of a given quarter's data.

Table 1

Machinery and equipment price indexes – Not seasonally adjusted

Available without charge in CANSIM: tables CANSIM table327-0041 and CANSIM table327-0042.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number survey number2312.

The first quarter 2012 issue of Capital Expenditure Price Statistics (Catalogue number62-007-X, free) will be available in July.

The machinery and equipment price indexes for the second quarter will be released on August 23.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Statistics Canada's National Contact Centre (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 613-951-8116; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or the Media Hotline (613-951-4636; statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@canada.ca).