The US growth rate was substantially lower than the 2.4% widely predicted by analysts. The fall in the growth rate comes alongside declining consumer spending and exports.The US economy grew less than anticipated in the first quarter of 2024, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

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The US registered 1.6% GDP growth in the first three months of the year, according to the data. This was substantially lower than the rate of 2.4% predicted by analysts.

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The growth rate for the previous quarter was 3.4%.

The fall in the growth rate comes alongside declining consumer spending and exports.

Although the inflation rate has dropped significantly, down to 3.5% compared to a rate of 9.1% in 2022, prices remain above levels from before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which slowed consumption and disrupted global supply chains.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that the US economy will grow 2.7% for all of 2024, up 0.2 percentage points compared to last year.

This is also more than double the growth the IMF expects for the other six states in the G7 group of industrialized countries.

While Europe's largest economy has seen mildly improving indicators, including increasing consumer confidence due to wage hikes, Germany's government maintains a growth outlook of just 0.3%.

Most of the currencies of the G20 group of major economies have depreciated against the US dollar.

More to come...

sdi/wmr (AP, AFP)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 25, 2024 06:30 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).