Most of the world's biggest and fastest-growing economies are heading into a prolonged period of slower growth, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and that includes the UK, the US and even China.
The influential, Paris-based think-tank yesterday unveiled its latest monthly composite leading indicators, which suggest that growth in most of its 33 member countries, as well as among many non-members, has peaked and a global economic slowdown is likely to follow.
The OECD’s leading indicator for July in the UK fell for a sixth successive month and at an increased rate in June. The indicators for the OECD area as well as the G7 group of industrialised nations – the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US – have now pointed to a possible peak in activity.
The organisation noted: “Compared to last month’s assessment, stronger signs of turning points in growth cycles have emerged in the United States, Japan and Russia.”
In the UK, specifically, the leading indicator fell by 0.3% month-on-month in July after drops of 0.2% in both May and April and 0.1% in both March and February.
The indicator is now perilously close to the 100 points level, which indicates flat activity.
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “The deterioration in the OECD leading indictor for the UK ties in the current softness of the UK economy and the current worrying outlook.
“In our recently completed August forecast, we project UK GDP growth at just 1.1% in 2011, improving modestly to 1.8% in 2012.
“We consider the risks to this forecast to be currently slanted very much to the downside.”
The UK economy grew by a lacklustre 0.2% quarter-on-quarter and 0.7% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2011.
While the Office for National Statistics indicated that special factors could have knocked off up to 0.5 percentage points off second-quarter growth – including the extra public holiday resulting from the royal wedding, manufacturing supply chain disruptions resulting from the Japanese tsunami, and maintenance work in the North Sea hitting oil and gas extraction – uncertainly remains about future growth prospects.
Mr Archer added: “There may well be a limited pick-up in activity in the third quarter as some of the activity lost to the second quarter’s distorting factors are made up.
“Nevertheless, the economy looks set to continue to struggle as the fiscal squeeze increasingly impacts and consumers limit their spending in the face of serious headwinds, most notably the major squeeze on their purchasing power from high inflation and muted wage growth.
“In addition, slowing global growth and current elevated financial market turmoil threatens to weigh down UK exports.”
However, most surprising in the latest OECD report is the prediction of a slowdown in the emerging economies, such as Brazil, China and India, with all those countries posting declines in their individual composite leading indicators.
The OECD cited a peak in Russia’s cost-of-living index (CLI) in June, which fell to 103.2 from 103.6 in May.
The US, China and the UK have all reported slowing growth in the second quarter. While many of the world’s economies are being driven by underlying demand from China, the Chinese economy still contains a number of vulnerabilities, not least inflation and its basic dependency on the West to buy its products.
A downturn in the US and Europe may not stop the Chinese economy in its tracks – as well as the economies of countries such as Brazil and Australia, which feed China the metals and commodities it requires for growth – but will certainly play its part in a Chinese slowdown.
At the same time, the OECD also noted eurozone area CLI fell to 101.5 from 102.1, while the G7 declined to 102.7 from 103.
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