The Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI has called a bottom.
The economic contraction that has rattled U.S. producers and consumers has flamed out, the trade group reports, and the long cleanup ahead will draw a good deal of its steam from manufacturing’s resurgence.
The Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Quarterly Economic Forecast, released Wednesday, predicts that U.S. gross domestic product will fall 2.7% this year, and then rise by 2.1% in 2010 and 3.2% in 2011, in what the group calls a “modest and fragile” recovery.
“The forecast for 2010 calls for a slight rebound in overall consumer spending based on slow personal income growth, and we look for continued improvement in the consumer sector in 2011,” said Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Chief Economist Daniel J. Meckstroth, in a statement.