Canada Building Permits Climb 3.8% in September

Canadian building permits rose in September for the first time in three months on a surge in demand in the nonresidential sector.

The total value of building permits issued by Canadian municipalities climbed 3.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis to 7.86 billion Canadian dollars ($6.15 billion) in September, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Expectations were for a rise of 1%, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.

On a year-over-year basis, permits issued rose 12.3%.

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 construction has commenced. This data tend to be volatile on a month-over-month basis.

According to the permits report, residential permits fell 1.7% to C$4.80 billion, while non-residential permits -- covering factories, retail space and government buildings -- climbed by a robust 13.9% to C$3.06 billion.

Write to Paul Vieira at

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 08, 2017 09:41 ET (14:41 GMT)