Sales of new vehicles have decreased by 0.8% in July

Canadian auto dealers sold 141,818 new vehicles in July, down 0.8 percent compared to June

Monday, publishing these data, Statistics Canada indicates that this decline was due to lower sales of private cars built overseas territories.

Overall, sales of private cars were down 2.9 percent to $ 77,122 in July. However, while sales of private cars built in North America were relatively unchanged, those of passenger cars built overseas fell by 7.1 percent after having achieved strong growth since the end of 2007.

Passenger cars built overseas account for about 36 percent of sales of new passenger cars.

Sales of new trucks (which include minivans, sport utility vehicles, light and heavy trucks, vans and buses) increased 1.8 percent to establish a 64696.

Truck sales were in decline since December 2007.

Among the provinces, British Columbia had the highest decline in sales of new motor vehicles in July, down 7.8 percent. Sales of motor vehicles in BC following a downward trend since the fall of 2007, mainly due to the weakening of truck sales.

Strong sales growth was observed in Newfoundland and Labrador (9.4 per cent), New Brunswick (5.6 per cent) and Saskatchewan (4.9 per cent).

In Quebec, a slight increase of 0.5 per cent was registered in June to July, while in Ontario, a decrease of 0.7 percent was observed.

Statistics Canada says Monday that preliminary data from the industry for the month of August show that the number of new motor vehicles sold will continue to decline, primarily due to weak sales of passenger cars North American manufacturing.