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Show Utah Business Activity Climbs Sharply Business activity in Utah climbed sharply last year, reaching another all-time high. According to a study prepared by Utah Foundation, Foun-dation, the private tax research organization, sales volume in Utah, as measured by sales tax receipts, totaled $6,312,000,000 during calendar 1977. This represented a 17 percent increase over 1976 and marked the seventh consecutive con-secutive double-digit gain recorded in Utah. The study noted, however, that a substantial part of the strong advance in dollar volume in recent years is due to inflation. When adjustments ad-justments are made for the declining purchasing power of the dollar, the effective increase in sales volume during 1977 was equal to 9.9 percent. This compared with adjusted effective gains of 7.8 percent in 1976, 2.6 percent in 1975, and only 0.7 percent during the recession year of 1974. Population growth was another factor accounting for increased business activity ac-tivity during recent years, according to the Foundation study. In the 1970 to 1977 period, Utah's population increased at an average rate of 2.5 percent per year, compared with a national growth rate of 0.9 percent per year. During the 10 to 1970 decade, the average population gain was 1.7 percent per year in Utah and 1.3 percent per year throughout the United States. Utah's economy has been performing much better than the economy for the nation as a whole during recent years. Foundation analysts point out that the adjusted effective sales volume gain of 9.9 percent in Utah last year was more than twice as great as the adjusted personal consumption con-sumption expenditure increase in-crease of 4.7 percent recorded throughout the U.S. in 1977. Utah's average increase of 7.4 percent per year adjusted sales volume during the 1970-1977 period also was double the average rise of 3.7 percent per year in adjusted personal consumption con-sumption expenditures throughout the nation. The study observes that this pattern of the past seven years is an almost direct reversal of the experience in the 19C0's when business activity in Utah was growing at a much slower pace than that of tile nation as a whole. Between I960 and 1970, the average growth in Utah's adjusted sales volume was 2.8 percent per year. This was well below the average increase in adjusted personal per-sonal consumption expenditures ex-penditures of 4.0 percent per year throughout the U.S. during this same period. The Foundation report shows that more than 50 percent of all business activity ac-tivity in Utah is concentrated con-centrated in Salt Lake County with nearly half of the Salt Lake County total emanating from Salt Lake City proper. During recent years, however, there has been a considerable shifting of business activity away from the larger cities, such as Salt Lake City, to the newer suburban areas. Business activity in Salt Lake City, for example, has grown at a much slower pace than that of Salt Lake County and the State as a whole. Between l5 and 1977, gross sales in Salt Lake City rose 1(2 percent, compared with increases of 241 percent throughout Salt Lake County and 257 percent in Utah. |