OTTAWA - Canada posted a record trade deficit of $4.1 billion in September but the figure was boosted by the one-off import of machinery for an oil project, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

The deficit - the 25th in a row - was much larger than the $1.70 billion shortfall forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

Statscan said the deficit would have been $1.2 billion had it not been for a jump in imports of machinery, much of it accounted for by a South Korean module destined for an offshore oil rig. That helped push imports up by 4.7 per cent, the biggest month-on-month gain in more than six years.

Total exports edged up by just 0.1 per cent.

Exports to the United States, which accounted for 74.4 per cent of all Canadian exports in September, fell by 0.6 per cent while imports dropped by 1.1 per cent. As a result, Canada's trade surplus with the United States grew to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion in August.