Bangor leaders meet Feds Bank officials forecast mediocre growth in Maine’s economy

BANGOR – Federal economic regulators came to Bangor Tuesday morning to hear what local business leaders had to say about Maine.

What they heard, the federal officials said after the meeting, was that the state’s economy has growth potential even if it faces some stiff challenges.

Four officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston met Tuesday morning with banking and business leaders from the Bangor area, both to get direct feedback about the area’s economy and to offer their predictions of Maine’s economic future. The meeting with business leaders was closed to the media to allow for a frank exchange of opinions and ideas, the officials said, but afterward they summarized what issues had been discussed.

“I didn’t get despair,” Cathy Minehan, the regional federal bank’s president and CEO, said of the discussion. “I didn’t get wild optimism, but I didn’t get despair.”

Jeffrey Fuhrer, the bank’s executive vice-president and director of research, said the issues facing Maine are similar to those elsewhere in New England and even throughout the country.

“Energy is a challenge for everybody,” he said, adding that many businesses for now seem to have found ways to absorb those increased costs. “Health care is just getting harder and harder to pay for.”

The state’s older population, caused by younger people moving away, is a common problem throughout New England, Fuhrer said. The cooling of the housing market – an “orderly correction,” according to Fuhrer – also has been felt nationwide, though the importance of the housing market to the national economy may have been slightly overstated, he said.

These and other issues are not believed to be more severe than similar economic challenges the state has faced in the past, the officials said.

“You have local restrictions on about everything in New England because of shortage of space and the desire to keep New England New England,” Minehan said.

According to Lynn Browne, executive vice president and economic advisor of the bank, Maine’s manufacturing sector is still in decline, even though the national decline in that sector appears to have leveled off. Browne said area business leaders are concerned about rising gas prices and taxes and that unseasonal weather such as wet summer months and a lack of snow in winter has affected the state’s leisure and hospitality industry.

Minehan said, however, that area business leaders also believe there is promise for further growth in and around Bangor and for development in Maine of biomass fuels as an alternative, secure energy source. Browne said there is a sense that the state’s education system is doing a better job of addressing the needs of a more modern workforce.

The federal officials predicted that the 2006 national growth rate likely would cool from a relatively high first-quarter growth rate of about 5 percent to about 3 or 3.25 percent.

Information gleaned from Tuesday’s meeting and others held periodically around New England help the bank make more informed decisions when it sets policies aimed at encouraging growth and limiting inflation, the officials said.