Eastern North Carolina, along with the state and the rest of the nation, is nearly fully recovered from the recession of 2009, but education will be the key to real economic growth, an ECU economist said Monday.

“With a couple of exceptions, virtually every national economic indicator has fully recovered or is clearly and convincingly recovering,” Rick Niswander, vice chancellor for administration and finance at East Carolina University, said Monday at the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Forecast Luncheon.

Per-capita income in North Carolina and the Greenville Metropolitan Service Area (Pitt and Greene counties) is above where it was at the start of the recession but below the national average, Niswander said.

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