The economic crisis that hit industrial states with heavy manufacturing bases built up over decades and will take years to reverse, President Barack Obama told The (Toledo) Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the eve of the next G-20 meeting.

"If you think about what's happening in Ohio and the manufacturing base that employed so many people, the decline in that sector of the economy took decades," the President said. "And reversing that and rebuilding it is going to take two decades as well."

The president said it's important to have policies in place that will help manufacturing companies trying to rebound to sell their products at home and overseas.

Obama says there is good news in the success Toledo has had becoming a national hub for solar energy research and manufacturing.

"That market we know is going to grow," the president said.

He also praised Pittsburgh as a world-class city chosen to host the G-20 summit because it is a success story of the changing U.S. economy.

The G-20 is a group of industrialized and developing countries that comes together to discuss global economic issues.

Obama made his comments to editors with The Blade and Post-Gazette Friday in Washington, along with Blade and Post-Gazette publisher John Robinson Block.

U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican from Bowling Green, Ohio, said the president's prediction of a long recovery was troubling.