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 was unchanged at 0.4 percent compared to the previous quarter, while the year-on-year GDP growth figure in the first quarter slowed to 1.8 percent, down from 2.0 percent in the previous quarter.
Compared with the same period of 2015, in the first quarter this year the largest increase in GDP growth in the OECD area was recorded in the UK at 2.1 percent, followed by the United States with a 1.9 percent growth rate, while Japan recorded the lowest annual growth rate at 0.0 percent.
Compared with the previous quarter, in the first quarter the UK saw its GDP growth rate decrease to 0.4 percent, while the United States saw its GDP growth rate decrease to 0.1 percent. In Germany, GDP growth increased to 0.7 percent compared to the previous quarter. Japan’s GDP growth rose to 0.4 percent in the first quarter, while France’s GDP growth increased to 0.5 percent, compared to 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter last year. In the first quarter, in the EU-28 region GDP growth rose to 0.5 percent, while GDP growth in the euro area was up to 0.5 percent, both compared to the fourth quarter last year.