* Wholesale trade slumps 0.6 pct, forecast was 0.1 pct drop
* First decline in seven months (Adds details)
OTTAWA, April 19 (Reuters) - Canadian wholesale trade dropped more than expected in February, shedding 0.6 percent from January largely due to poor sales in the auto and parts sector, according to Statistics Canada data on Tuesday.
In spite of the hefty monthly drop, wholesale trade remains 16.8 percent higher than the most recent low recorded in March 2009 and was above pre-recession levels.
Analyst's surveyed by Reuters had expected a decline of 0.1 percent in sales. The seasonally adjusted data released on Tuesday reflects revisions back to January 2006.
This was the first drop in sales in seven months with declines recorded in four of the seven subsectors, representing approximately half of total sales.
In volume terms sales were down 1.0 percent in February from January.
The biggest drop in value terms came from the auto subsector which fell 3.1 percent in February, and the miscellaneous subsector which was down 3.5 percent, dragged down by a 5.6 percent slump in agricultural supplies sales.
Wholesale inventories, which have been gaining since the start of 2010, rose 0.3 percent in March. The inventory to sales ratio, a measure of the number of months it would take to exhaust inventories at the current sales pace, edged up to 1.16 in February from 1.15 previously. (Reporting by Louise Egan and Howaida Sorour; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)