AI Analysis: International merchandise trade, by commodity, price and volume indexes, monthly

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 12100168 tracks monthly price and volume indexes for Canadian international merchandise trade across 153 commodity categories from January 2017 to January 2026, encompassing 250,000 records benchmarked to 2017=100. The data reveals moderate overall growth (mean index 107.34) punctuated by dramatic price surges in 2021–2022 driven by global supply chain disruptions and inflation, with 6.1% of records qualifying as statistical outliers. Price indexes have outpaced volume indexes since 2017, and export and import prices are meaningfully correlated (r=0.591), reflecting shared global commodity price pressures.

Key Findings

• The dataset spans January 2017 to January 2026 with 250,000 records across 153 NAPCS commodity categories, 3,636 unique time series, and 4 trade perspectives (Import/Export × Customs/Balance of Payments).
• The overall mean index value is 107.34 (median 103.30, base year 2017=100), with a tight interquartile range of just 13.00 (Q25: 98.20 to Q75: 111.20), but extreme outliers push the maximum to 1,082.1 and the standard deviation to 27.51.
• Price indexes average 109.43 versus volume indexes at 103.18, indicating that price growth has outpaced trade volume growth since the 2017 base year.
• Export and import price indexes share a moderate positive correlation of r=0.591, reflecting shared global commodity price pressures, while volume indexes are only weakly correlated with each other (r=0.085).
• Using a 3×IQR outlier detection method (threshold: 150.2), 15,287 records — 6.1% of the dataset — were flagged as outliers, concentrated in the 2021–2023 inflation and supply chain disruption period.
• Import and export index means are nearly identical (107.60 vs. 107.09), though imports show slightly higher variability (standard deviation 29.09 vs. 25.82) and a higher maximum value (1,082.1 vs. 667.4).
• After peaking around 2021–2022, price indexes show signs of moderation, while volume indexes reflect shifting global demand patterns — a structural shift clearly visible in the time series analysis.