The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has announced that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the OECD area in the first quarter this year decelerated sharply to 0.4 percent from 0.7 percent recorded in the previous quarter, while the year-on-year GDP growth figure in the first quarter remained stable at 2.0 percent.
Looking at the seven major OECD economies, in the given quarter the United Kingdom (2.1%) recorded the highest annual growth rate, while Italy and France recorded the lowest growth (0.8%).
In the first quarter of 2017 in the seven major economies, growth slowed markedly in the United Kingdom to 0.3 percent percent compared with 0.7 percent in the previous quarter, and declined in the United States to 0.2 percent compared with 0.5 percent in the previous quarter. Growth also slowed in France to 0.3 percent down from 0.5 percent recorded in the last period of 2016 and remained at 0.2 percent in Italy compared to the previous quarter. On the other hand, growth picked up in Germany to 0.6 percent and rose in Japan to 0.5 percent, both compared to the fourth quarter of last year.
In the European Union growth slowed marginally to 0.5 percent from 0.6 percent in the previous quarter, while in the euro area it was stable at 0.5 percent, quarter on quarter.