The US economy is on its way to recovery and the recession is close to being over, top government officials declared today.
"We're probably a little closer to the end (of the recession) than we are the beginning. There are the signs that we're beginning to turn the corner," Commerce Secretary Mr Donald Evans said in an interview with NBC's
Meet the Press
.
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Treasury Secretary Mr Paul O'Neill said the 74 per cent of Americans in a new poll who felt the economy would improve in the coming year were "on the right track." Fourteen per cent in the Fox News Opinion Dynamic Poll released today expected the economy to get worse.
"The information we have so far in the data on economic performance is a mix but I think it's mixed toward the positive side, and I'm optimistic we're going to return to good rates of real growth," Mr O'Neill told Fox News Sunday.
Mr Evans said US retail sales "continue to be pretty strong" and that auto and home sales are also strong, and inventories of goods are way down.
"So if consumers continue to participate in the economy, sooner or later we're going to start having to build these inventories up again," he said. Consumer spending fuels two-thirds of the American economy.