Consumer Debt Drops 0.3% in January : Loans: Speed of repayment is called a barometer of recovery.

WASHINGTON —  Consumers continued to pay down their overall installment debt in January but boosted their loans for automobiles for the first time in 13 months, the government said Monday.

The Federal Reserve said consumer credit decreased at a 0.3% annual rate, or a seasonally adjusted $183 million. Installment debt fell 0.8% during 1991, the first annual drop in 33 years.

Consumer credit includes all consumer loans except mortgages and home equity loans.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other economists have said the speed with which businesses and consumers pay down the mountains of debt incurred during the 1980s will determine how quickly they resume spending and thus provide the momentum to get the economy moving.

The January decline was the third straight, although it was slower than the 1.2% posted in December. The revised drop in December also was less than half of the 2.8% rate originally estimated last month.

Automobile loans rose at a 1.5% annual rate, or a seasonally adjusted $332 million, the first increase since car loans advanced 3.6% in December, 1990.

Auto makers had reported that 1991 sales were the worst since 1983, when the economy was emerging from the previous recession. Sales of domestically produced cars fell slightly in the first 20 days of January but jumped 16.9% in the final 10-day period.