Britain leads economic growth among biggest OECD countries
THE UK’S economy is outstripping all other big rich countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said yesterday.
Britain’s GDP grew by 3.2 per cent on the year to the second quarter – far faster than second placed US, which registered an expansion of 2.4 per cent.
The strong growth puts the UK firmly ahead of the Eurozone, which achieved anaemic growth of 0.7 per cent on the year.
Some of those major European nations were either stagnant or shrinking over the past 12 months.
The French economy effectively ground to halt, expanding by just 0.1 per cent.
And Italian GDP contracted by 0.3 per cent.
In the second quarter alone, the story was slightly different – the US grew fastest in the three-month period at one per cent, followed by the UK’s 0.8 per cent.
More countries also contracted – Germany and Italy by 0.2 per cent each, and Japan by 1.7 per cent.