China and the world’s rich countries will suffer less economic damage than feared, with the greatest harm falling on poor nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said last week.
The global economy will contract less in 2020 than the group predicted in June, but the recovery will slow from now through the rest of this year and could be hobbled by new COVID outbreaks, the OECD warned.
The group predicts net growth in China’s economy this year, no longer a contraction as it had expected earlier.
Europe Slowing
The Eurozone’s industrial production grew 4.1 percent in July compared to July 2019, but fell short of June’s 9.5-percent expansion, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency.
Production of consumer goods rose 4.7 percent in July, a fraction of June’s 21.2-percent surge.
Germany’s 2.4-percent July industrial expansion compared poorly with June’s 10.9 percent growth, due largely to a slowdown in vehicle production.
Economists reduced their expectations for Britain’s economy this year, deepening their predicted contraction to -10.07 percent, according to a survey by Consensus Economics.
TREND FORECAST: Beyond industrial production, the tourism industry in Europe tanked, while it grew in China. With a variety of global travel restrictions, its citizens who once flooded into foreign destinations (178.4 million outbound trips last year according to Travel China Guide) instead vacationed across the country.
