HOUSTON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The latest U.S. manufacturing and trade statistics, released on Wednesday, showed that the business inventories for December 2017 hit 1,902.2 billion U.S. dollars.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's data, manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of 1,902.2 billion U.S. dollars, up 0.4 percent from November 2017 and were up 3.2 percent from December 2016.
The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers' shipments for December 2017, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes, was estimated at 1,431.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 0.6 percent from November 2017 and was up 6.7 percent from December 2016.
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of December 2017 was 1.33. The December 2016 ratio was 1.37.
