March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, offering his most optimistic outlook on the economic recovery to date, predicted the U.S. will rebound from the recession faster and more vigorously than other advanced economies.
“We’re going to come out of this stronger than the other major economies and we’re going to come out more quickly,” Geithner said in remarks today at the Export-Import Bank in Washington. Global growth is expected to be 4 percent this year and next, and “those forecasts seem to be going up,” he said.
While the credit crisis and near collapse of Wall Street “caused a huge amount of damage to basic confidence among businesses and families,” Geithner said the “economy is healing -- you are seeing gradual strengthening really across the board.”
The U.S. unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent in February and the economy lost 36,000 jobs, fewer than economists anticipated. Earlier today, a Commerce Department report showed retail sales last month unexpectedly increased for the fourth time in the past five months.
“The American economy is starting to come back,” even though the recovery still feels “tough” for some, Geithner said. The government will maintain efforts to stimulate growth until private demand strengthens, he said.
“We’re not going to make the mistakes that many other countries have made in the past, which is to, at the first signs of life and hope, step on the brakes and hope this thing will take care of itself,” he said. “We think it’s important for the government in Washington to keep providing some reinforcement in targeted ways that can get investment going again, job creation more rapidly.”
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