US Commerce chief: recovery will be slow, uneven

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DETROIT, June 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Tuesday that the recovery from the current downturn would be uneven affair and that it would take "many years" for the economy to return to where it had been before.

"I think that we are going to see what people refer to as 'green shoots' here and there," Locke told an audience in response to a question at the National Summit in Detroit. "The recovery is not going to be even."

Locke said economists have been predicting that the official definitive end of the recession would occur toward the end of this year or the beginning of 2010.

"But that is just the official definition of the end of a recession. It is going to take many years to get back to where we were before and there is going to be a lot of anxiety and a lot of pain along the way," Locke said.

Locke said the U.S. would succeed again.

"It's not going to be overnight," Locke said. "We are seeing the rate of decline starting to slow down and in some cases moving back up, but it is not even across all the sectors." (Reporting by David Bailey; Editing Bernard Orr)