OECD gauges show growth is set to pick up in Eurozone; UK, Russia are exceptions

According to leading indicators released Monday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, economic growth is set for revival in Germany and the eurozone.

The main exceptions are the U.K. and Russia, which are set for slowdowns. India's growth is likely to accelerate.

The Paris-based research organization said its indicators of future economic activity also suggested growth in most of the world’s other large economies will remain at current rates over coming months, including the U.S. and Canada.The gauges are based on information available for December.

The OECD’s leading indicators are designed to provide early signals of turning points between the expansion and slowdown of economic activity, and are based on a wide variety of data series that have a history of signaling changes in economic activity.

The leading indicators for the eurozone show growth will pick up in the early months of 2015, an encouraging sign for the European Central Bank as it prepares to launch its new program of quantitative easing, under which it will buy more than 1 trillion euros of mostly government bonds between March 2015 and September 2016, as The WSJ reports.

“Composite leading indicators…point to tentative signs of a positive change in growth momentum in the euro area, particularly in Germany and Spain,” the OECD said.

The European Union’s statistics agency will Friday release its estimate of growth in the eurozone economy for the final quarter of last year. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect that estimate to record an expansion in gross domestic product of just 0.2%, a rate of growth unchanged from the third quarter.

The OECD’s composite leading indicator for its 34 members rose to 100.5 in December from 100.4 in November. The leading indicator for the U.S. was unchanged at 100.4. A reading of 100.0 indicates an economy will grow at its trend rate of growth, or the average over recent decades.

The leading indicator for the U.K. continued its decline of recent months, falling to 100.2 from 100.3, while the indicator for Russia dropped to 99.4 from 100.0, pointing to a slowdown in growth over coming months in both countries.