Factory Orders Weak In 1998

New orders to American factories rebounded in December but the gain wasn't enough to prevent 1998 from entering the record book as the weakest year for manufacturing since the recession of 1991.

Orders jumped 2.3 percent during the last month of the year, to a seasonally adjusted $343.5 billion, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the biggest increase in 13 months.

However, orders for all of 1998, totaling $4.03 trillion, were just 2.1 percent higher than the year before. That compared with a healthy 5.4 percent gain in 1997 and was the weakest year since orders posted a 2.3 percent decline seven years earlier.

The weakness was particularly pronounced at U.S. blast furnaces and steel mills, which are competing with cheap steel imported from Russia, Brazil and Korea. Their orders fell 12.5 percent, the biggest decline in at least 15 years. And the increase for aircraft was anemic, a 0.2 percent gain over 1997.

Both figures reflect the global economic crisis that swept across Asia during the summer and fall of 1997, struck Russia last year and spread to Brazil last month.

However, on the bright side, orders for computers and office equipment surged 19.4 percent, the biggest gain in 14 years. And orders for communications equipment jumped 12.1 percent.

Orders for durable goods big-ticket items expected to last three or more years rose 3.6 percent and orders for nondurable goods rose just 0.2 percent.

ritten By Dave Skidmore, Associated Press Writer