The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) presented the results of its overall average GDP growth in the fourth trimester from last year. According to his calculations based on the averages of the member countries, the bloc’s economy grew 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, below the 0.4% rise in the previous quarter, according to provisional estimates.
The organization reported that quarterly growth rates have remained weak throughout 2022 at a context of high inflation and increase in interest rates. For this reason, the bloc anticipates that similar scenarios could be seen in 2023, especially due to a lower rebound among power economies in Europe such as Germany or the United States and Canada in America.
Movements of large economies
In the G7, quarter-on-quarter GDP growth also slowed slightly in the fourth quarter of 2022, to 0.4% compared with 0.5% in the third quarter of 2022. This result reflects a mixed picture among the G7 countries. On the one hand, growth turned negative in Germany and Italy (minus 0.2% and minus 0.1% respectively) and slowed to 0.4% in Canada, 0.1% in France, and 0.7% in the United States.
Elsewhere, GDP grew, for example, by 0.2% in Japan after a contraction of 0.3% in the third quarter of 2022, and was flat in the United Kingdom after a decline of 0.2% in the previous quarter. Among other OECD countries for which data is available, Ireland recorded the highest GDP growth (3.5%) in the fourth quarter of 2022.
For the G7 countries that have already published detailed preliminary GDP estimates, volatile movements in international trade continued to have a substantial effect, as noted in the OECD GDP growth release for the third quarter of 2022.
“In the fourth quarter, this was particularly true for the United States, where the contribution to GDP growth of net exports (exports minus imports) added just 0.1 percentage points to growth compared to 0.7 percentage points in the third quarter,” he explained. the report on North America.
At this same point, over the United Kingdom, net exports there subtracted 0.8 percentage points from growth, compared with an addition of 3.7 ppts in the third quarter.
Those closest to the war in Ukraine
In March of last year, the OECD warned about the war effect especially among the closest countries by geographical position to the center of the outbreak.
Now, GDP contracted in Poland in the fourth quarter of 2022 by 2.4%, the sharpest drop in OECD countries for which data is available. GDP also contracted in Lithuania (minus 1.7%) and Hungary, albeit at a slower pace (minus 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to minus 0.7% in the third quarter). On the other hand, growth remained constant in the Slovak Republic.
