Canada Building Permits Off

Ottawa, Ontario, June 6, 2007--A drop in residential and non-residential construction drove the value of Canadian building permits down by a sharper-than-expected 8.4 percent in April after huge gains in March, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday.

The result outpaced analysts' forecasts of a 4.6 percent decline. Statscan revised the March increase in building permits to 26.5 percent from 27.4 percent previously.

Non-residential building permits taken out by contractors were worth 18.9 percent less than those obtained in March, the second-biggest decline in dollar terms since 1989.