São Paulo – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) informed on Thursday (13) that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the G20 countries, the group of main economies in the world, grew 0.7% in the first quarter as against the last three months of 2012. In the period from October to December last year, the expansion was 0.6%. The multisectorial organisation headquartered in Paris said, however, that the growth was unequal among the countries of the bloc.
The economies of the United Kingdom and Germany grew 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, after retracting in the last quarter of 2012. In France and Italy there was a reduction again, of 0.2% and 0.6%, respectively. In the French case, the reduction was the same identified in the previous quarter, but in the case of Italy, the retraction was smaller. The GDP of Italy had dropped 0.9% in last three months of last year. The European Union as a whole saw its GDP drop 0.1%, whereas in the Euro Zone there was a retraction of 0.2%.
From one quarter to the next, the greatest growth was in Turkey (from 0.1% to 1.6%), Japan (from 0.3% to 1%), South Korea (from 0.3% to 0.8%), Canada (de 0.2% to 0.6%) and in the United States (from 0.1% to 0.6%).
In the cases of Brazil and Australia, the expansion remained stable, at 0.6%, according to the OCDE. Brazil, Australia, Canada and the United States grew by the same amount, drawn in the sixth position among the nations in the group that grew most in the period.
There was reduction of growth in Indonesia (from 1.5% to 1.4%), Mexico (from 0.7% to 0.5%), in South Africa (from 0.5% to 0.2%), in China (from 2% to 1.6%) and in India (from 1.2% to 0.5%).
Other comparison
As against the first quarter of 2012, the GDP of the G20 maintained stable growth of 2.4%. In this comparison, the greatest growth came from China, with 7.7%, followed by Indonesia (6%), Turkey (3.4%), India (2.8%), Australia (2.5%), Mexico (2.2%), South Africa (1.9%), Brasil and the United States (1.8%), South Korea (1.5%), Canada (1.4%), the United Kingdom (0.6%) and Japan (0.2%).
The economies of Italy, France and Germany had contractions of 2.4%, 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively. The GDP of the European Union as a whole dropped 0.7%, and that of the Euro Zone, 1.1%.
*Translated by Mark Ament
