LONDON, Oct 19: The world’s top economies are likely this year to post their worst showing in almost two decades, expanding by a paltry one per cent, according to tentative figures from the OECD published in Britain’s Financial Times newspaper on Friday.

The paper said the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was also forecasting that gross domestic product would creep up to just 1.2 per cent in 2002.

If the 2001 projection is confirmed, it would be the weakest performance since 1982, the Financial Times said, citing leaked preliminary figures from the Paris-based OECD.

In its previous forecast, published in May, the OECD predicted that its member economies would expand two per cent this year and 2.8 per cent in 2002.

The latest provisional figures are based on a recent meeting of OECD staff economists and officials from its member governments, the paper said. Final figures are due out on November 20.

Germany and Japan came in for the sharpest revisions in the latest forecasts. Germany is now seen as growing just 0.7 per cent this year and just 1.0 per cent in 2002, down from May forecasts of 2.2 and 2.4 per cent.

In May the OECD saw the Japanese economy expanding 1.0 per cent this year. The organization is now forecasting negative growth of 0.7 per cent in 2001 and a shrink of 0.8 per cent in 2002.

Activity is also expected to remain lacklustre in the United States, which should post growth of 1.1 per cent this year and 1.3 per cent in 2002. In May the OECD foresaw a US recovery next year to a growth rate of more than three per cent.

As the first signs emerged that British consumers were tightening their belts after last month’s attacks on the United States, the leaked figures predicted that annual growth in Britain would slip to just 1.6 per cent in 2002, sharply down on its mid-year prediction of 2.6 per cent.

It estimated the British economy would grow 1.9 per cent this year.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), one of the world’s leading economic forecasters, has sharply reduced its estimates for British growth next year, The Guardian reported on Friday.

As the first signs emerged that British consumers are tightening their belts after last month’s terror attacks in the United States, a leaked copy of the OECD biannual economic outlook predicted growth here will slip to just 1.6 per cent in 2002, sharply down on its mid-year prediction of 2.6 per cent, the paper said.

The draft report by the OECD showed that the Paris-based think-tank has halved its forecasts for growth in the West next year, with the slump triggered by the suicide attacks extending well into 2002.

The organization predicted that the gross domestic product of its 30 member states would increase by 1.2 per cent in 2002, compared with an initial estimate of 2.8 per cent.

Earlier this year British finance minister Gordon Brown forecast British growth of between 2.25 per cent and 2.75 per cent next year.

The Treasury and the Bank of England are relying on the strength of British consumer spending to ward off the recessionary forces rippling out from the US economy, The Guardian reported.—AFP