Expansion in the global industrial sector began in the second quarter of 2010, according to a recent MAPI/Manufacturers Alliance Issues in Brief: World’s Industrial Activity Sets New Record. At the global level, the recovery started in the second quarter of 2009 and industrial activity has rebounded 14 percent from the trough to the current period (second quarter 2010).

We Deliver Distribution News to Your Inbox Sign up below to receive MDM Update, your free weekly distribution news update by email.

World industrial production previously peaked in the second quarter of 2008 and the subsequent \”Great Recession\” destroyed 11 percent of the physical volume of world industrial production to the first quarter 2009 trough.

Second quarter growth, though, was enough to push global production above the previous cyclical peak set two years ago. In other words, the world’s manufacturing sector moved out of the recovery phase and into an expansion phase once again in the second quarter of 2010 and Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI expects new global production records going forward.

Emerging economies saw a decline of 6 percent in industrial production from the second quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009 when recovery began. Initially led by China and Indonesia, the recovery swiftly gained momentum as the other Emerging Asian countries rebounded. Emerging economies fully recovered by the third quarter of 2009, increasing 20 percent from their trough in the first quarter of 2009 to the most recent quarter (second quarter 2010).

Industrial production in the advanced economies fell 18 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009. An industrial production recovery in advanced economies began in the third quarter of 2009.

Although production is up 9 percent from the trough through the second quarter of 2010, the recovery has several more years to go before the level of production exceeds the first quarter of 2008 previous cyclical peak. MAPI estimates that advanced economies will not exceed the previous cyclical peak and move into the expansion phase until the third quarter of 2013.

MAPI forecasts that it will be many years before the three major advanced economies reach a production level that exceeds the previous cyclical peak set in the first quarter of 2008. United States’ industrial activity is expected to move from recovery to expansion in the second quarter of 2012, Japan should exceed its previous cyclical peak by the fourth quarter of 2013, and it is projected to take the Euro Area until the second quarter of 2016 to reach its expansion phase again.

Read the entire report at mapi.net.