Jan. 17--According to an economic outlook report released in December, the probability of North Dakota entering a recession early in 2009 was slightly greater than 50-50.

But for many residents and business leaders in Grand Forks, the bad national economic news from 2008 is making it hard to remain optimistic about the regional forecast for the new year. Here's what two local economists had to say about what to expect in the coming months.

David Flynn is the director of UND's Bureau of Business and Economic Research, which performs research for businesses and government agencies throughout the state.

Ralph Kingsbury is a columnist at the Herald and is also the owner/operator of Kingsbury Applied Economics in Grand Forks.

Q. How do you think the Grand Forks economy will perform in 2009 compared with the rest of the country? What are the city's strong and weak economic areas that will affect its performance?

DF: I think we will see a potentially slow start to 2009 given what's going on in much of the country. Lots of people are playing a wait-and-see game. I think the fundamentals are quite strong. Once we see that the U.S. economy has at least bottomed out and is starting to work its way out of problems, you'll see the regional economy grow again and I think grow better than at the national level.

RK: Grand Forks will perform better than the nation as a whole. However, I do worry about the agricultural sector because of what has happened to that across the world. I also worry about our dependence on Canadian shopping, and retail in general. The strength is UND, especially the Med. School, EERC, Center for Innovation, and several other departments. Also, health care.

Q. In what economic sector do you see the most potential for growth in Grand Forks this year? Which sector will most likely face the biggest declines?

DF: I think the biggest question marks out there right now are for our manufacturing sector. They are by and large dependent on consumers from outside of the immediate region. The question marks facing those other regions of the country weigh more heavily on those producers than others. I think the businesses are fundamentally strong, but the questions they face are outside of their local control.

The local banks have by and large been very cautious, even through the boom years in banking. They were paying attention to the fundamentals of their borrowers. Our credit providers should be relatively strong compared to those you see in other parts of the country. That's a real plus to us.