PARIS
Gross domestic product growth in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries has slowed to 0.5 percent for the fourth quarter of 2014, slightly down from 0.6 percent in the third quarter.
According to the latest figures released Thursday by the OECD, GDP growth slowed most in the United States, where it dropped from 1.2 percent to 0.7 percent. Growth also slowed in the United Kingdom to 0.5 percent, compared with 0.7 percent in the previous quarter.
Growth picked up in Japan to 0.6 percent following two quarters of contraction of minus 0.6 percent and minus 1.7 percent.
However, the organization said that for 2014 as a whole, the GDP rose by 1.9 percent in the OECD area, up from 1.4 percent in 2013 and the growth in the European Union and in the eurozone continued to show a slight improvement as in the previous quarter.
This rise is mainly due to the strong German economy where growth has reached 0.7 percent while it remained flat in Italy and decreased in France to 0.1 percent.
