From South Korea:
Based on currently available information, the Committee considers the economic recovery in the US to have continued, albeit at a moderate pace, but the sluggishness of economic activities in the euro area to have deepened. Growth has continued to slow in emerging market countries as well, due mostly to the impact of the economic slumps in advanced countries. The Committee expects the pace of global economic recovery to be very modest going forward and judges the downside risks to growth to be large, owing chiefly to the spillover of the euro area fiscal crisis to the real economy and to the possibility of the so-called fiscal cliff materializing in the US.
Bank of England:
Output growth had remained soft across many advanced and emerging economies, and world trade had grown only slowly in recent quarters. The JPMorgan global composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for September had suggested that growth in output and new orders had risen on the month, but those indices also continued to point to below-average growth rates.
Australia
Members noted that the gradual slowing of Chinese economic
growth had been accompanied by declining exports to
Europe for some time and, more recently, falls in exports
to the United States and Japan. The slowing of growth
in China had resulted in weaker demand for steel, which
was evident in the falls in steel and iron ore prices
in August and had resulted in lower steel production.
The Chinese authorities had announced a number of infrastructure
projects, although the additional stimulus that this
imparted was likely to be modest in the near term. The
housing market appeared to have turned but, with prices
picking up in recent months, controls on the property
market that sought to improve affordability were likely
to remain in place, at least in the near term.
The slowing of growth in Japan and other parts of east
Asia in recent months partly reflected softer global
demand, which had weighed on exports and industrial
production, particularly for electronic products. Consumer
confidence remained subdued across the region. Despite
the slowing in economic activity, there had been little
recent further monetary easing in the region, apart
from Japan.
Indicators over the past month suggested that the US
economy continued to expand at a modest pace. Members
noted that while there had been a few positive developments,
growth in important parts of the economy remained restrained.
The housing market was improving gradually, with both
turnover and prices picking up in recent months. In
contrast, labour market conditions remained subdued,
with employment growth noticeably slower than earlier
in the year. The Federal Reserve referred to this weakness
when it announced additional monetary stimulus measures
in September.
Economic activity in both the euro area and the United
Kingdom was continuing to contract amid weak domestic
demand, with investment remaining subdued. Members observed
that growth had slowed even in the better-performing
economies. Although some further progress had been made
in resolving the banking and fiscal problems in Europe,
these problems were likely to present large downside
risks to the world economy for some time.
