Canada Building Permits Rise 3.5% in October

Canadian building permits rose at a robust clip in October, following a strong gain in the previous month, on demand to build multifamily dwellings and warehouses.

The total value of building permits issued by Canadian municipalities climbed 3.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis to 8.22 billion Canadian dollars ($6.45 billion) in October, Statistics Canada said Thursday. Expectations were for a 1% rise, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.

Meanwhile, the data agency revised upward its September building-permit data, from an earlier estimate of a 3.8% advance to a 4.9% gain.

On a year-over-year basis, permits issued rose 1%.

Building permits are meant to provide an early indication of construction activity in Canada and are based on a survey of 2,400 municipalities, representing 95% of the country's population. A permit gives a contractor the right to build but doesn't necessarily suggest that construction has commenced. This data tend to be volatile on a month-over-month basis.

According to the permits report, residential permits increased 2.3% to C$4.94 billion, while non-residential permits--covering industrial, office and government buildings--climbed 5.5% to C$3.28 billion.

Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 07, 2017 09:05 ET (14:05 GMT)