Manufacturing technology consumption for January 2007 totaled $297.48 million, according to the latest figures from the American Machine Tool Distributors Association (AMTDA) (www.amtda.org)and The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), based on reports by companies participating in the USMTC program. While January’s figures were down 9.8 percent from December 2006, it was up 30.9 percent from the total of $227.23 million reported in January 2006. “While early forecasts for 2007 have suggested it is unlikely that growth in our industry’s sales will surpass the results of 2006, January has made an impressive start,” said John J. Healy, AMTDA President. “Results were well above year-ago levels in almost every region, and were the highest for the month since 2000.” By region, sales of metal cutting and metal forming manufacturing technology in the Northeast for January totaled $54.19 million, down slightly from December’s sales, but a jump of 75.2 percent over January 2006. The South has total sales of $32.03 million, down 41.1 percent from December and also down 12.7 percent from January a year ago. The Midwest saw strong sales for January of 77.61 million, up 7.2 percent over December, and up 11.1 percent over January 2006. The Central region had sales in January of $74.88 million, down 8.6 percent from December’s sales and a drop of 41.9 percent from January 2006 sales. The West had a total of $58.76 million in sales, down slightly at 7.7 percent from December’s sales, but a big gain of 59.0 percent over January 2006 sales.