The US economy is slowing but the outlook is benign, while Japan is poised for its longest post-war growth spell, OECD chief Angel Gurria said on Thursday.
"The US is slowing down but the overall diagnosis is benign," Gurria told reporters on the sidelines of an economic conference. "Japan is going into the longest, not the strongest, growth period after World War Two." Asked whether current oil prices posed a threat to global economic growth, Gurria said: "No."
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is due to publish its twice-yearly world economic outlook on November 28. Financial markets widely expect the US economy to cool off, but most investors now bet on a soft-landing rather than an abrupt downturn that would badly hurt global growth and hurt financial markets world-wide.
Commenting on Poland, the OECD chief said he believed inflation remained well under control and that the country should only join the euro area once its economy was prepared to swap the zloty for the single currency. While Polish inflation remains one of the lowest in the European Union, some central bankers have warned it masked a build-up of price pressures that could push prices sharply higher next year and beyond.