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SALTILLO, Mexico — Daimler Trucks North America dedicated its $300 million Freightliner plant here Feb. 27, as Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, joined company officials to formally launch the new 1.3 million-square-foot facility.

As cash flow becomes tighter for many fleets, more are turning to financial services that pay invoices almost instantly. Trucking and financial executives said that while the service known as “factoring” can be beneficial, once a fleet gets started, it can be hard to stop. As a result, they recommend carriers understand the full scope of services offered and costs involved.

January truck tonnage fell 10.8% below year-ago levels, the fourth consecutive year-over-year decline and another signal the freight recession shows no signs of bottoming out yet, American Trucking Associations said.

Rail and intermodal traffic continued their weeks-long decline last week, the Association of American Railroads said Thursday.

Fourth-quarter U.S. worker productivity fell at a 0.4% annual rate, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The U.S. economy’s service sector contracted in February, at a faster pace than the previous month, the Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday.

February U.S. automobile sales fell to the lowest rate in more than 27 years, led by a 53% plunge for General Motors Corp., Bloomberg reported.

Your story on the demise of RigMaster comes as no surprise in a sector of the truck market that has seen a drastic downturn of new business, mostly exacerbated by tightening of credit markets (2-9, p. 4).

U.S. manufacturing activity showed a slight increase in January but still showed contraction, the Institute for Supply Management said.