Wednesday, December 24, 2003


U.S. ECONO-BOOM FINALLY REACHES NYC

December 24, 2003 -- Business in the Big Apple - and the entire country- is booming.
New York was lagging behind the rest of the United States, but now seems to be catching up, experts said yesterday, as the government reported that the economy nationwide has expanded at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years,

Marc Goloven, a senior regional economist for JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan, said the city economy has dramatically improved in the past few months.

"Already, there seem to be some definitive signs that the New York City economy is emerging from its protracted . . . recession," he said. "The economic quality is definitely warming up in the city."

He said the surge will continue and "should result in . . . a declining unemployment rate."

Former State Comptroller Ned Regan agreed, saying the city’s economy is "turning the corner."

"Productivity has been phenomenal," said Regan.

It looks like, at long last, the [city] economy is picking up. There’s good signs of hiring, more than we’ve seen in a year and a half."

Charles Gargano, head of the Empire State Development Corp., was even more enthusiastic.

"New York City is in a great position economically right now," said Gargano, whose state-run organization was created to encourage business growth. "We’re starting to reap the benefits of the nation’s economic rebound. People are spending more and companies are expanding. There’s strong momentum."

As for the country as a whole, the U.S. Commerce Department reported yesterday that the gross domestic product grew at an impressive 8.2 percent rate during the third quarter.

It was the biggest spurt in 20 years.

"Growth was boosted by consumer spending, by business investment in equipment and software, by investment in housing, and by exports," the department said in a statement.

And many economic analysts are optimistic that the GDP in the current quarter could grow faster than 5 percent, resulting in the best back-to-back growth rates since the 1990s.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home