The phrase "a longer term decline" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a decrease or deterioration that is expected to last for an extended period of time.
Example: "The company has been experiencing a longer term decline in sales due to increased competition in the market."
Alternatives: "a prolonged decline" or "an extended downturn".
More generally, it has been on a longer-term decline since 2002.
A focus on stock price, therefore, can mask a longer-term decline in a company's financial footing.
A longer-term decline in pharmaceutical manufacturing that continued into October was a bigger blow to the UK following several government initiatives to maintain production in the UK.
Or was 2008 just the beginning of a longer-term decline that won't be reversed until the major Western economies return to growth?
More than just a cyclical trough, this may be a longer-term decline, because the left has lost its political narrative.
The bigger worry, he said, lies in a longer-term decline in China's economic growth rate The banking system continues to allocate credit mainly to state-owned enterprises and local governments instead of more efficient private enterprises, as overseas demand for Chinese exports levels off and consumer spending remains weak.
And an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month found that most Americans believed that we aren't simply going through tough times as a nation but are at "the start of a longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world".
Professor Alex Kemp said production was expected to increase between now and 2015, before a longer-term decline in production over the next 30 years.
In western Kenya, economic contraction and public sector retrenchment overlaid a longer-term decline in rural livelihoods, which the AIDS epidemic brought to a peak (or rather a trough) (Geissler and Prince 2010).
This is less than half of the 50 million it had a year ago, and part of an even longer term decline.
