The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has announced that gross domestic product (GDP) in the OECD area grew by 1.9 percent year on year in the first quarter of this year compared with 1.8 percent year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter last year, according to provisional estimates.
In the first quarter, the United States recorded the highest growth rate with three percent, while Japan saw the largest contraction with 1.4 percent, both year on year.
Compared with the previous quarter, GDP growth slowed to 0.3 percent in the first quarter of the current year in the OECD area. In the European Union, GDP growth was stable at 0.4 percent in the first quarter this year, while the euro area indicated a rise of 0.4 percent, quarter on quarter. France and Japan saw increased growth of 0.6 percent, while in Italy GDP grew by 0.3 percent - the first increase since the third quarter of 2013, while the United States recorded a slowdown in growth to 0.1 percent and growth also decelerated in the United Kingdom to 0.3 percent, all quarter on quarter.