OECD: Growth in industrialized economies continues to slow

The world's major industrialized economies are continuing to witness slowing growth after an uptick following the 2008-2009 financial and economic crisis, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Monday. The OECD, which groups 33 of the world's major economic powers, said that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in its members averaged only 0.2 percent growth in the second quarter of 2011, confirming a weakening trend over the past year. In the second quarter a year earlier, the OECD economies had grown by 1.6 percent, bouncing back after the recessions recorded in 2009 because of the financial turmoil engendered by the US "Sub-prime" crisis. US growth was put at 0.3 percent in the second quarter compared with 0.1 percent in the first. The Japanese economy saw a second-quarter decline of 0.3 percent in GDP, after a 0.9 percent contraction in the first quarter due largely to the impact of an earthquake and Tsunami in the spring. Europe, however, was most prominent in the slower trend in the April-to-June period this year, with GDP progressing by only 0.2 percent compared with 0.8 percent in the preceding three-month period. German GDP growth was divided by more than four from the first to second quarters, falling to 0.3 percent from 1.3 percent, while French growth fell to zero percent from 0.9 percent in the first quarter of 2011. British second-quarter growth was given at 0.2 percent, less than half of the 0.5 percent recorded in the previous quarter.