OECD GDP growth slowed to 0.1% in the first quarter

MADRID, 23 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) slowed in the first quarter to 0.1% compared to the previous three months, when the pace of expansion was 1.2 %, according to the 'think tank' of advanced economies.

This is the lowest growth rate observed in the OECD countries as a whole since the economic collapse caused in the second quarter of 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic and the containment measures implemented.

Since the fourth quarter of 2019, the OECD economy has accumulated an expansion of 2.2%.

Compared to the first quarter of last year, the OECD's GDP grew by 4.2%.

In the first quarter of 2022, the GDP growth of the G7 countries contracted one tenth, after an increase of 1.2% in the fourth quarter of 2021, as a consequence of negative GDP data in the United States (- 0.4%), Italy (-0.2%) and Japan (-0.2%), as well as zero growth in France and weaker positive growth in the UK (0.8%) and Canada ( 1.4%) than in the previous quarter.

Thus, Germany was the only G7 country where the pace of growth increased, with GDP growth of 0.2% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to a contraction of 0.3% in the previous quarter.

The UK exceeded its pre-pandemic GDP level for the first time in the first quarter of 2022, by a margin of 0.7%. In the United States, France and Canada, GDP remained higher than before the pandemic. However, in Germany, Italy and Japan, GDP was still below pre-pandemic levels (1%, 0.4% and 0.7% respectively) in the first quarter of 2022

Among other OECD countries for which data are available for the first quarter of 2022, Portugal and Austria recorded the largest increases in GDP compared to the previous quarter (2.6% and 2.5% respectively), followed by Hungary and Latvia (2.1% in both countries).

GDP falls were recorded in Norway (-1%), Chile (-0.8%), Costa Rica (-0.5%), Israel and Sweden (-0.4% in both cases) and Denmark (-0 ,one%).