Global economic conditions improved markedly last year. Within the OECD, output growth is estimated to have risen to 3 per cent, the best outturn since 1989. Growth was particularly buoyant in North America, reflecting strong domestic demand, with the NAFTA economies forecast to have grown by 4 per cent. Economic prospects also improved in Europe, with growth picking up in both Germany and France. However this has yet to produce any significant declines in unemployment in those countries, suggesting that a considerable degree of slack still remains in their labour markets. In contrast, the unemployment rate in the United States has fallen under 5 per cent for the first time since the early 1970s. Growth has slowed, although not yet collapsed, in Japan with domestic demand having proved unexpectedly weak in the aftermath of moves to tighten fiscal policy. We expect to see some slowdown in global growth this year, largely as a result of the impact of recent developments in Asia, with the growth in OECD GDP projected to moderate to 2.6 per cent, some 0.4 percentage points lower than we would otherwise have predicted.