Business in brief: Gain predicted for lumber output

Lumber mills are starting to emerge from the worst downturn in the industry’s history, according to the Western Wood Products Association.

The Portland-based trade association predicts a 7 percent gain in Western lumber output in 2010, based on a strengthening national housing market.

The region’s 170 sawmills will churn out 11 billion board feet of lumber this year, and 11.8 billion board feet in 2011, according to projections. But market activity will remain well below the peaks of the mid-2000s, the forecast says.

“Our country really hasn’t resolved the key problems that led to this downturn,” said David Jackson, the trade association’s economic services director.

The majority of lumber is used in home construction or remodeling. Housing starts plummeted to 554,000 units in 2009, the lowest level since 1945. For 2010, housing starts are forecast to increase nearly 12 percent to 618,000 and then climb again in 2011 to 719,000 units.

Becky Kramer

U.S. urged to press Asia on currency

Washington – Pressure on China to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar intensified Wednesday with a prominent economist telling Congress that the Obama administration should cite China and four other Asian economies as currency manipulators in a report due in April.

C. Fred Bergsten, head of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the House Ways and Means Committee that a successful campaign to pressure Asian nations on the currency issue could create as many as 1.2 million new American jobs.

Bergsten said that not only is China keeping its currency undervalued against the dollar, but Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan are keeping their currencies undervalued as well to avoid losing sales in markets where they compete against China.

He said he believes the Chinese yuan is undervalued by about 40 percent against the dollar and the other currencies are similarly undervalued. He said allowing those currencies to rise against the dollar to the proper levels would trim America’s trade deficit by $100 billion to $150 billion annually. Last year’s current account deficit totaled $419.9 billion.

Associated Press

Ad revenue falls for newspapers

New York – Newspaper advertising revenue plunged 27 percent last year to its lowest level since 1986, according to figures released Wednesday, reflecting the toll of the recession and a media shift that’s driving more marketing dollars to the Internet.

Newspapers sold $27.6 billion worth of ads in 2009, a figure that includes both print and online revenue. That’s down from $37.8 billion the year before, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

Things did improve toward the end of 2009, raising hopes that the worst of the slump is over. Ad revenue in the final three months of the year fell 24 percent from a year earlier to $7.7 billion – the smallest quarterly percentage decline of 2009.

The slump has hit other media as well, including magazines, broadcast television and even Internet titans such as Google Inc., which saw its breakneck revenue growth slow considerably.

Associated Press