Global Woes Are Expected To Slow Region's Growth
Try to ignore the storm-warning flags and enjoy the fourth quarter, because 1999 may be a batten-down-the-hatches year.</br></br>That's the advice of most economists as the Southeast wraps up its eighth consecutive year of economic expansion.</br></br>The region's gross state product -- the value of all goods and services -- will still grow at a respectable 3.7% annual rate in the next three months, ahead of the 2.8% pace forecast for the nation as a whole, according to eight economists recruited by The Wall Street Journal to forecast the Southeast's economic output.</br></br>Among the reasons for the near-term optimism: Interest rates at decade lows, lean inventories and payrolls, and an influx of retirees, second-home buyers and tourists from Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains to Florida's Sanibel Island.</br></br>But with the exception of one shooting star -- South Carolina -- the Southeast's other five states are slowly losing their luster. Just last quarter, the panel of economists predicted growth of 4% for the six-state region.