PARIS, Nov 8: The world's leading economies are set to diverge as they recover from the global economic crisis, with the United States, Germany, Japan and Russia gaining pace while China, Britain, France and India slowing down, the OECD said on Monday. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said the forecasts were based on its composite leading indicators (CLI) index. The indices for China and another emerging market powerhouse, Brazil, “continue to point strongly downwards, edging below the long term trend and implying that the level of industrial production will fall below its longer-term trend,” the report said. In the United States, the government reported last month that the economy grew at a modest 2.0 per cent in the third quarter after a pace of 1.7 per cent in the second. Analysts described third-quarter activity as tepid and unlikely to make a serious dent in the country's 9.6 per cent rate of unemployment. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner nevertheless said on Monday that chances were lower of a US “double-dip” recession than at any time in the last 12 months. “Things are gradually getting stronger in the US,” he told a business audience in New Delhi. A protracted Chinese slowdown would be of major concern to the United States and the European Union, which look to the Chinese market as a critical export outlet. World stock markets picked up last week after manufacturing activity in China was reported to have hit a six-month high in October. The Chinese economy grew 9.6 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, down from 10.3 per cent in the second and 11.9 in the first in the face of government efforts to rein in property prices and bank lending. But the World Bank last Wednesday boosted its 2010 growth forecast for China to 10 per cent, while warning that global tensions over trade imbalances could cast a shadow over the rosy economic outlook. The bank based its new prediction on what it termed the “still surprisingly strong” 9.6-percent growth in the third quarter and said the prospects for the world's second-largest economy “remain sound.” Elsewhere in Asia the Bank of Japan recently downgraded its 2010 growth forecast to 2.1 per cent from 2.6 per cent, warning that the pace of recovery was likely to slow in the second half. The bank last week held off on approving extra monetary easing measures while issuing a downbeat report on the world's number three economy. “Japan's economy still shows signs of moderate recovery, but the recovery seems to be pausing. Exports and production have recently been more or less flat,” the bank said. In Europe, Germany is again seen as a growth engine. The government last month more than doubled its forecast for output this year and predicted a steady expansion in 2011. Europe's top economy is poised to grow by 3.4 per cent in 2010 before slowing next year to 1.8 per cent, Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said. This represented a major revision from the government's previous forecasts made in April, of 1.4 per cent and 1.6 percent respectively. Bruederle said that after a strong impulse from exports, domestic demand would contribute much more to growth next year. “The recovery is standing solidly on two legs.”—AFP