Excerpt from Annual Trade Projection Report to Congress The macroeconomic performance of the major industrial countries in 1991 was characterized by sluggish growth and falling inflation. The current account surplus in Japan rose substantially, the u.s. Deficit fell sharply and Germany moved from large surplus into moderate deficit. Overall economic growth in the industrial countries was slow throughout the year. However, this generalization masks wide differences among countries in growth rates and trends. Several important countries, including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, began 1991 in recession, but started to recover in the second or third quarters. These recoveries were weak, however, and in the case of the United Kingdom output fell again in the fourth quarter. By contrast, Germany and Japan were booming as the year began, but later slowed down. A quarter by quarter examination of 1990 and 1991 shows that, for the industrial countries together, the fourth quarter of 1990 was the worst single quarter of the recent slowdown. Compared with this quarter, every quarter in 1991 was better. But on an annual basis, 1991 was worse than 1990; aggregate industrial country growth slowed from percent in 1990 to only percent in 1991. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.