CHARLOTTE — U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Wednesday the economy was rebounding after nearly “falling off a cliff” a few years ago, and credited President Barack Obama’s policies for the turnaround.

While he said the economy was improving, he warned there were still challenges ahead.

“We’re still living with tremendous damage caused by the crisis ... and all the scars of the crisis will take a long time to heal,” he said.

Geithner visited Charlotte the day after the president’s State of the Union address and toured a Siemens Energy plant before speaking to local business leaders at the Chamber of Commerce.

His message echoed the president’s address. Obama told Congress that the economy was rebounding from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, more than 3 million jobs have been created in the last 22 months and U.S. manufacturers were hiring.

Geithner touted growth in several critical sectors, including manufacturing and energy. “This is one of the best times in agriculture in decades,” he said.

He defended tough policies to regulate banks to prevent another banking meltdown like the one in 2008 that crippled the economy.

“They are tough where they need to be tough,” he said.

He said people were hurt in the meltdown, losing homes and facing other financial problems.

“Look at the damage caused to the innocent,” he said, adding, “we are making a huge amount of progress in building a stronger, safer financial system.”

It was no accident that Geithner picked Charlotte. North Carolina is a key state for Obama and that’s one of the reasons the Democratic National Convention is being held this summer in the city. Obama won the state by 14,000 votes in 2008, the slimmest margin of all the states he carried, becoming the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to carry the state.

Siemens has invested more than $350 million in Charlotte in the last four years — an investment that is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs. The company’s Charlotte plant, which builds steam and gas turbines, recently underwent a $130 million expansion to strengthen its export capabilities.

A Siemens worker, process operator Jackie Bray of Kings Mountain, was invited by the White House to attend the State of the Union address. She sat in the first lady’s box and was held up as an example by Obama during the speech. After being laid off from a job, Bray was trained at a community college before landing the job at Siemens.

Mark Pringle, the company’s director of operations and head of the Charlotte facility, said he heard good things in the president’s speech.

“We completely agree with his initiative of making manufacturing a focus and finding ways to get our people trained and get into more manufacturing in the country. That definitely resonated with us,” he said.

He said Siemens does a lot of overseas business, and recently landed a $1 billion contract with Saudi Arabia to provide turbines and generators.

“We’re in the business of building large equipment for infrastructures of different countries. We’re a little bit insulated from the direct economy. We’re getting some orders from around the world to build equipment and it’s keeping us busy. But we haven’t seen it come back big yet, and that’s what we’re trying to prepare for. It’s taking a little bit longer than we originally assumed it would.’

He also said he was proud that Geithner visited the plant and that it was being held up by the president as a success story.

“A key part of our success is our partnership with community colleges,” he said.

In the past, people could graduate high school and get manufacturing jobs. Not anymore. Many manufacturing companies like Siemens are looking for highly skilled workers.

“People not only have to know the traditional skills like machining and welding, now they have to understand how computer controls work on a machine and be able to diagnose issues,’ Pringle said.

Geithner also said Wednesday that he doesn’t expect to serve a second term as Treasury secretary. He said he doesn’t think President Barack Obama would ask him to remain if Obama won re-election.

“He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another Treasury secretary.”

Geithner is the only remaining top official on Obama’s original economics team. He had considered leaving in August after the congressional battle over raising the debt limit was resolved.

Obama asked him to reconsider and remain in the Cabinet, and Geithner did. But the incident heightened expectations that Geithner would serve only through the 2012 election.

Asked for reaction to Geithner’s comments Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said, “In August, when the president asked Secretary Geithner to remain in his position, Secretary Geithner made it clear he intended to leave after the election and the president understood that decision.”

Geithner, who helped lead the administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, has been a frequent target of criticism in his three years at Treasury. Many accused him of siding too closely with Wall Street in the government bailout of the financial system.

As the administration’s highest-profile economic figure, Geithner been a lightning rod for criticism of its economic stewardship. Critics contend that government spending under Obama failed to keep unemployment from rising and gave the country record budget deficits.

But Geithner also received praise for his leadership in getting a sweeping financial overhaul through Congress and in the efforts he made to stabilize the financial system

Geithner’s supporters also argue that the Treasury secretary provided Obama with sound advice on how to restructure the financial system. They note, too, that he successfully managed the government’s $700 billion financial bailout to limit taxpayers’ losses.

In the interview Wednesday, Geithner offered no hints of what he might do after leaving the administration.

“I’m very fortunate,” he said. “I work with tremendously talented people, and this is one of the most important times in modern history to be in the world of economic policy and finance. And I work for a great president, who I believe in.”

It isn’t unusual for Cabinet secretaries to leave after just one term of a two-term presidency. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both had three Treasury secretaries during their two terms in office.

The only Treasury secretary in recent history to serve more than four years was Nicholas Brady who served as Ronald Reagan’s third Treasury secretary. Brady then stayed to serve for all four years of the George H.W. Bush administration.