Moreover, Puerto Rico’s power outage was, by far, the most severe in U.S. history, in terms of total customer-hours lost, and it will still likely take many more months to fully restore electricity and other critical infrastructure to all of the Island’s residents. As a result, a sizable number of residents went to the U.S. mainland in the weeks following Maria, and it still is unclear how many will return once circumstances improve. Even before the storms hit, Puerto Rico was struggling with severe fiscal difficulties and a long period of poor economic performance. For over a decade, the Island has been experiencing a shrinking economy, contracting employment, low and declining labor force participation, and persistent out-migration of residents to the mainland. Furthermore, public debt reached a problematic level, and the Commonwealth and its instrumentalities—including the power and water authorities—lost their ability to borrow in the public markets. Defaults and ongoing debt restructuring efforts followed. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, the situation is similar in many ways. St. Thomas and St. John were ravaged by Irma, and St. Croix was devastated by Maria just two weeks later. Their economy, which is much more dependent on tourism than that of Puerto Rico, has also been contracting for the better part of a decade. However, the population of the U.S. Virgin Islands has not fallen nearly as sharply as Puerto Rico’s, and its economy had stabilized in the past two years following the closure of a major refinery in 2012.

Bank of France reports industrial output continued to grow in most sectors in France in January 1997 BANK OF FRANCE, MONTHLY BUSINESS SURVEY, 17/2/97. In January, according to the business leaders surveyed by the Banque de France, industrial output continued to grow in most sectors. Activity was especially buoyant in the intermediate goods and consumer goods sectors. The food processing sector was alone in recording a contraction in activity. The capacity utilization rate improved. Overall demand strengthened further. French products were very competitive on foreign markets and this led to an increase in export orders. Export sales increased in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, while demand remained firm in the United States and Asia. On the domestic market, inter-industry demand was strong, even though the orders received came with very short delivery times in most cases. Order books are now near to normal levels. They are still considered to be low in the food-processing and automobile industries, but are deemed to be satisfactory in the capital goods and consumer goods sectors. Inventories of finished products are gradually returning to normal overall, but they still exceed the desired levels in the consumer goods, food-processing and intermediate goods sectors. The outlook for the coming months is distinctly brighter. Activity should increase in all sectors, with marked improvements in the intermediate goods and food-processing sectors. Commodity prices were stable overall, while finished product prices declined slightly. This fall stemmed mainly from substantial price cuts in the automobile industry, while prices generally held up in the other sectors.