Machinery and equipment price indexes, second quarter 2012

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The Machinery and Equipment Price Index (MEPI) rose 0.8% in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter. The import component was up 1.2% over this period, while the domestic component increased 0.1%.

All industries posted increases in prices of machinery and equipment purchased in the second quarter. The largest contributor to the total MEPI quarterly increase was manufacturing (+0.9%), with the transportation equipment manufacturing sub-component advancing 0.9% and the paper manufacturing sub-component up 1.0%. The second largest contributor to the quarterly increase was finance, insurance and real estate (+0.5%).

On a commodity basis, most commodities posted price increases in the second quarter, with the other industry specific machinery (+1.1%) and construction machinery (+2.0%) contributing the most to the quarterly increase of the total MEPI.

The Canadian dollar depreciated 0.9% against the US dollar in the second 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 second quarter of 2011, the total MEPI increased 4.4%, with the import component rising 6.5% and the domestic component up 1.4%. The movement in the import component was partly influenced by the year-over-year change in the Canadian dollar (-4.2%) 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 second quarter 2012 issue of Capital Expenditure Price Statistics (Catalogue number62-007-X, free) will be available in October.

The machinery and equipment price indexes for the third quarter will be released on November 22.

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).