OECD sees most major economies improving

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported last week that composite leading indicators point to improvements in growth in most major OECD countries while growth in China is returning to trend.

OECD composite leading indicators
	Ratio to trend, amplitude adjusted					Change from previous month
	2013					2013
	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul
OECD area	100.3	100.4	100.5	100.6	100.7	0.10	0.10	0.09	0.09	0.08
United States	100.7	100.8	100.9	101.0	101.1	0.09	0.09	0.11	0.10	0.09
Euro area	99.9	100.0	100.2	100.3	100.5	0.15	0.14	0.16	0.17	0.17
Japan	100.7	100.9	101.0	101.1	101.1	0.23	0.20	0.15	0.08	0.03
China	99.8	99.7	99.5	99.5	99.4	-0.13	-0.15	-0.14	-0.09	-0.03

However, other economic data last week were not very positive.

In the United States, retail sales rose 0.2 percent in August, the smallest increase in four months, while the preliminary Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment for September came in at 76.8, down from 82.1 in August.

In the euro area, industrial production fell 1.5 percent in July, the second decline in three months.

In Japan, core machinery orders were flat in July. The consumer confidence index fell to 43.0 in August from 43.6 in July, its third consecutive decline. The economy watchers survey's current conditions index fell for the fifth consecutive month in August to 51.2 from 52.3 in July while the future conditions index fell to 51.2 from 53.6.

However, data from China did corroborate the OECD's assessment of a return to trend growth. Industrial production rose 10.4 percent from a year earlier, the biggest increase in 17 months, while retail sales rose 13.4 percent, up from 13.2 percent in July.