The U. S. Department of Commerce said on Friday that U. S. wholesale inventories rose 0.5 percent in May from April while sales fell 0.3 percent.

It has been reported that for the month, sale of durable goods was up 0.5 percent, while non-durable goods sales on the wholesale level were down 1 percent, largely due to a decline in petroleum sales.

Excluding petroleum, sales rose 5.9 percent.

It has been indicated by the official data that inventory followed the same pattern with durable goods inventories up 0.7 percent and non-durable goods inventories up only 0.1 percent at the end of the month.

The report also noted that the inventory-to-sales ratio for May was 1.34, indicating it would take 1.34 months to sell off the inventory in warehouses at the current pace of business activity. (With Inputs from Agencies)