OECD calls US dip a blip, but chops world growth forecast

The OECD today sharply lowered its global growth forecasts for 2015 and 2016, dragged down partly by a "transitory" shortfall in US performance and by businesses and governments skimping on investment.
"Global growth is projected to strengthen in the course of 2015 and 2016, but will remain modest relative to the pre-crisis period," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
It predicted the world economy would grow at a rate of 3.1 per cent this year, down from the 4.0 per cent increase it projected in March.
The growth forecast for next year has been revised downward half a percentage point, from 4.3 to 3.8 per cent, with an expectation that the world economy "will strengthen gradually to approach its past (pre-crisis) average pace by late 2016."

The OECD, a policy analysis body grouping 34 advanced economies, slashed its outlook for the United States from 3.1 and 3.0 per cent to 2.0 and 2.8 per cent for this year and next.
The Paris-based think-tank said the stronger dollar and a brutal North American winter -- which it said caused "transitory disruptions" -- put a brake on growth in the first quarter of 2015, while predicting: "Activity should regain steam, with aggregate demand propelled by continued employment gains, wealth effects from rising asset prices, and the boost to purchasing power from lower oil prices."

China, too, will grow more slowly than the OECD predicted in March, by two-tenths of a percentage point lower in both years, at 6.8 per cent and 6.7 per cent in 2015 and 2016.

"Consumption will remain robust" in China, where growth will also be spurred by stepped-up infrastructure investment, it said.
The OECD said that overall, "the economic recovery from the global financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008 has been unusually weak."
The knock-on effects have included continuing job insecurity, sluggish development in emerging economies and "rising inequality nearly everywhere", the report said.
However, the OECD said it expected growth "to be shared more evenly across regions of the world" in the coming period.
Its outlook for the eurozone was unchanged for this year and slightly rosier for 2016, at 2.1 per cent from 2.0 per cent thanks to lower oil prices, the weak euro, better financial conditions and fresh stimulus spending.

But unemployment in the eurozone will remain stubborn, declining to a still painful 10.25 per cent by the end of next year, the OECD said.