“For manufacturing, which accounts for more than three-quarters of industrial output, the 0.7% surge in activity was the strongest gain in six months,” Huether says. “It was driven by solid increases in computers and electronic products, machinery, aircraft and motor vehicles, as well as a number of nondurable products such as apparel and petroleum and coal.”
Throughout 2006, manufacturing production increased by 3.7%. And with overall GDP growth expected to come in at 3.1% in 2006, manufacturing has, for the first time since the late 1990s, outpaced the overall economy for three consecutive years.