The growth pace across the middle layer of OECD members slowed slightly in the second quarter. GDP rose by 0.4 percent from the previous quarter, April through June, after a prior quarter that had growth under 0.5 percent. The Paris-based organization notes this pattern aligns with a longer-running trend of modest expansion that has been visible since the first quarter of 2022.
Spain marked another milestone, recording 0.4 percent growth and joining the list as the organization’s thirteenth high-growing member. The OECD emphasized that the country has endured the pandemic’s impact with a deep GDP contraction of 11.3 percent in 2020, yet managed to recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2019 and surpass that level in the second quarter of 2023. The review initially highlighted this achievement in June, with the end-of-July assessment moving it to the second quarter as a confirmed outcome.
The OECD, chaired through the partnership of Belgium and Australia, highlighted that the G7 showed improvement in the second quarter, rising from 0.4 percent to around 0.5 percent. Yet the performance of the world’s seven largest advanced economies remained mixed. Japan increased from 0.9 percent to 1.5 percent, and France progressed from 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent, with export growth more than offsetting declines in private consumption in both cases.
pre-pandemic level
Growth also accelerated in a more modest fashion in several economies. The United States moved from 0.5 percent to 0.6 percent thanks to stronger investment and private consumption. The United Kingdom benefited from a boost in both public and private spending, rising from 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent. Italy, by contrast, saw a slowdown in activity, slipping from 0.6 percent to -0.3 percent amid weaker domestic demand. Canada eased from 0.8 percent to 0.3 percent, while Germany’s exports remained subdued after two down quarters, contributing to a slight deceleration in overall activity.
In the region near these economies, Ukraine’s GDP rebounded strongly, with Lithuania growing 2.8 percent after a 2.1 percent drop in the first quarter. Poland, however, contracted sharply, dropping from 3.8 percent to -3.7 percent. Hungary continued to shrink for a fourth consecutive quarter, down by 0.3 percent. Across the OECD as a whole, Ireland posted the highest growth at 3.3 percent, followed by Slovenia at 1.4 percent and Costa Rica at 1.3 percent. On the downside, activity declined in several countries, notably Poland (-3.7 percent), Sweden (-1.5 percent), and Colombia (negative).
Overall, GDP within the OECD area surpassed its pre-pandemic level from the fourth quarter of 2019 by 5.1 percent in the second quarter of 2023. The G7 as a group was about 4 percent above that level, though the United Kingdom remained slightly below it. In the rest of the OECD, GDP stood above 2019’s fourth-quarter levels in all countries for which data was available, with the Czech Republic among them.