The forecast comes from University of the Pacific in Stockton. It shows that while the U-S economy has narrowly avoided a recession, California has not…and recovery for the state will be slow. 

"The next 12 months are going to be challenging." 

That’s Jeff Michael. He heads up UOP’s Business Forecasting Center. He predicts the state’s economy will rebound in 2010…and one of the area’s with the strongest growth will be Stockton. That’s because of it has a strong mix of agriculture and food processing and shipping. 

"It’s being seen more and more as a very strategic location for businesses to set up their distribution networks from. So we’ve seen gains in some of these sectors which have pretty much offset a lot of the losses in construction." 

Michael also predicts the housing market in Stockton and the rest of the Central Valley will rebound in 2010 because prices will stabilize at affordable levels.