WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A string of downbeat economic reports, including evidence that companies are paring back investment spending and signs that housing is taking another hit, have prompted economists to reduce their forecasts for U.S. economic growth in the first half of 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

    Since late last year, forecasters have warned that economic growth in 2007 would be weaker than in 2006, due to a slump in housing construction and reduced production by American auto makers, said the report.

    As the housing and auto slumps have deepened while business spending has started to wane, economists are taking another look at their forecasts for the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic activity, the report said.

    Earlier this month, said the report, the consensus estimate of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal said that GDP would grow by about 2.3 percent in the first quarter, down from an estimate of 2.5 percent a month earlier. The forecast for the second quarter was unchanged at 2.4 percent.

    One-tenth of a percentage point in GDP amounts to about 13.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to the report.

    "The housing recession is likely to be a little deeper and much more prolonged than any of us have been thinking, and capital spending will be considerably weaker," Nariman Behravesh, chief U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight, was quoted as saying. The firm lowered its forecast of first-quarter GDP growth to 1.6 percent from 2.2 percent.

    Macroeconomic Advisers, an economic consulting firm based in St Louis, lowered its forecast to 1.4 percent from 1.7 percent. Economists at Morgan Stanley reduced their tracking of first-quarter GDP growth to 1.4 percent from 1.6 percent; the firm's estimate had been as high as 2.2 percent in mid-March, the report said.

    Last year, U.S. gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted 3.3 percent.