M-TEK expands in Murfreesboro
Auto supplier M-TEK plans to build a new North American headquarters in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and create 100 more jobs, Gov. Bill Haslam said Friday.
In all, the company will employ 250 people in Murfreesboro and invest $13.4 million, according to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
About 100 jobs will be transferred from M-TEK’s Manchester, Tenn., manufacturing site and the remaining will be shifted from the company’s Farmington Hills, Mich., and Dublin, Ohio locations.
“Tennessee is at the epicenter of the new Southern automotive corridor,” said Bill Hagerty, ECD’s chief.
The M-TEK facility will support operations in Chattanooga as well as in Mexico, Michigan, Ohio, Mississippi and Alabama, along with Manchester and Smyrna, Tenn. M-TEK is a subsidiary of Kasai Kogyo Co. Ltd., a Japanese automotive parts manufacturer of over 68 years.
Consumer debt up $13.2 billion
U.S. consumers increased their borrowing in October but at a slightly slower pace than in the previous month as credit card use slowed.
Overall borrowing rose $13.2 billion following a $15.4 billion gain in September, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. The gains have pushed consumer debt excluding real estate loans to a record level of $3.28 trillion.
The category that includes credit card debt edged up by $922 million after a rise of $1.4 billion in September. The category that covers auto loans and student loans jumped by $12.3 billion after a $14 billion increase in September.
Economists expect that the strong gains in employment seen this year may make consumers more comfortable about increasing their use of credit cards, something they cut back on sharply following the Great Recession.
The Fed’s monthly consumer credit report excludes mortgages and other loans secured by real estate. A quarterly report issued by the New York Federal Reserve Bank that tracks all types of consumer borrowing shows that total household debt, including home mortgages, increased by $78 billion in the July-September quarter to $11.7 trillion.
That is still slightly below the peak for total debt of $12.7 trillion reached in the third quarter of 2008 as the Great Recession was deepening and households began to cut back on their borrowing as millions of people lost jobs.
Trade deficit drops last month
The U.S. trade deficit fell slightly in October as exports rebounded while oil imports dipped to the lowest level in five years.
The deficit edged down 0.4 percent to $43.4 billion, a drop from a revised $43.6 billion in September, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Exports climbed 1.2 percent to $197.5 billion, recovering after a September dip. Imports were up as well, rising 0.9 percent to $241 billion but that increase was tempered by a 0.6 percent fall in imports of petroleum, which dropped to the lowest level since November 2009. The average price of a barrel of oil dipped to $88.47, the lowest point since February 2011.
Through October, the deficit is running 4.8 percent below the same period in 2013. A lower deficit provides a boost to economic growth.
Paul Dales, senior economist at Capital Economics, said that trade, which added to overall growth in the July-September period may be a slight negative in the current quarter as imports end up growing faster than exports.
He said that the October performance suggests that exports will grow at an 8 percent rate in the fourth quarter while imports will grow at a slightly faster 10 percent rate. Dales said this could result in overall economic growth coming in close to 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, down from third quarter growth of 3.9 percent.