COLUMBUS, IN — ACT Research, one of the continent’s leading analysts of truck- market conditions, has announced that it expects the U.S. economy to grow at around a 2 percent rate into 2012.

What’s better is that the analysts say the heavy-duty truck market will continue to benefit from healthier trucking profits and rising used-truck values.

“A wide range of U.S. economic data reported in the last few weeks have been stronger than consensus expectations,” said ACT’s Chief Economist Sam Kahan.

“However they are incidental to underlying trends as fundamental factors affecting economic growth remain largely unchanged.”

No adjustments were made to ACT’s commercial vehicle forecasts this month.

ACT is the worldwide leading publisher of new and used commercial vehicle (CV) industry data, market analysis and forecasting services for the North American market, as well as the U.S. tractor-trailer market and the China CV market.