Growth in the world's biggest economies slowed in the second quarter of 2012 because of weaker consumption, the OECD said on Thursday, with Canada showing the strongest results and Italy the weakest. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which provides analysis and policy guidance for 34 countries, said that economic growth eased to a quarterly rate of 0.2 percent in the three months from April through June.
The first quarter rate was 0.4 percent, an OECD statement said. A breakdown of the data showed that the Canadian economy had expanded by 0.5 percent in the second quarter, the same rate as in the first three months of the year. At the other end of the spectrum, Italian economic activity contracted by 0.8 percent in the second quarter, also the same rate as in the first. Britain was the second-worst performer among the Group of Seven (G7) most industrialised economies, with a contraction of 0.4 percent in the second quarter, slightly worse than the 0.3 percent first quarter contraction.