PARIS, Oct 11: 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 per cent in the three months from April through June. The first quarter rate was 0.4 per cent, an OECD statement said.

“Private consumption, which contributed 0.1 percentage point to GDP (gross domestic product) growth, compared with 0.3 percentage point in the previous quarter, was the main driver for the overall slowdown,” it added.

A breakdown of the data showed that the Canadian economy had expanded by 0.5 per cent 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 per cent in the second quarter, also the same rate as in the first. —AFP