Despite a soft first quarter, the U.S. economy should gradually improve through the end of the year, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Quarterly Industrial Outlook, a report that analyzes 27 major industries.
Manufacturing industrial production expanded at a 0.9 percent annual rate in the first quarter 2007, but the MAPI forecast envisions an improved 3 percent growth rate in the second quarter.  ; For the year as a whole, though, the report predicts that manufacturing production growth will decelerate from the 4.7 percent recorded in 2006 to 2.1 percent growth in 2007, before rebounding to 3.3 percent growth in 2008.
The manufacturing inventory correction is over, the inexplicable decline in exports has passed, the January 1, 2007, EPA diesel …
