Those interested in insurance for accountants will be pleased to hear that G7 economic growth – apart from Japan of course – is expected to be stronger than projected before in previous reports.
The upbeat assessment, which will delight those that take out insurance for accountants, has just been published by the OEDC, a respected economic think tank, which releases a regular Interim Economic Assessment.
The OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan said:
“The outlook for growth today looks significantly better than it looked a few months back.”
He went on to say that encouragingly, the higher growth perspectives across the whole OECD area means that the recovery needs less fiscal, or monetary policy support, which leads to the conclusion that it is gradually becoming self sustaining.
This is welcome news for all those who have insurance for accountants, as an improved global position, means that the financial services sector will be that much busier.
On a bleaker note, the OECD said that its report contained no projections for Japan, as the tsunami made it impossible to calculate the full economic cost to the country and the short term outlook was extremely uncertain.
The OECD noted Japan’s own estimates regarding the impact of the disaster which reckoned that the physical capital loss is between 3.3% to 5.2% of annual GDP. This might result in growth down to between 0.2% and 1.4% over the coming quarters.
On a more general level within the G7 countries, excluding Japan, the OECD reckon that growth will be in the 3% region in the first six months of 2011.
Although the growth is respectable says the OECD, there are some darker clouds on the horizon. Unemployment remains a worry, as does inflationary pressures, but because there is a large amount of space capacity in both product and labour markets, this should not be a short to medium term worry.
Further negative influences on the prospects of the G7 countries are identified by OECD and these include political unrest in northern Africa and worries about Middle East instability. This most visibly manifests itself as a rise in oil prices which could create a significant drag on overall recovery. There are also worries about sovereign debt, especially on mainland Europe which might see the European leaders riding to the rescue of yet another hard-up state.
But, there are a number of positives, including better looking corporate balance sheets and increased levels of private investment.
Less good news for people with insurance for accountants in the UK, is that the OECD believes that the British economy is the least robust within the G7, Japan excluded of course. This has increased concern that the UK Coalition government is bringing in too draconian cuts and unlike the US and many other countries, will actually stop growth, do little to curb inflation and increase unemployment.
