Eurozone crisis live: Day two of Iberia strikes after clashes with police The world's richest countries saw their economies contract for the first time in almost four years during the final three months of 2012, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation said. The Paris-based think tank said gross domestic product across its 34 member states fell by 0.2% - breaking a period of rising activity stretching back to a 2.3% slump in output in the first quarter of 2009. All the major economies of the OECD - the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the UK - have already reported falls in output at the end of 2012, with the think tank noting that the steepest declines had been seen in the European Union, where GDP fell by 0.5%. Canada is the only member of the G7 currently on course to register an increase in national output. The 0.2% decrease followed a 0.3% expansion in the third quarter, and resulted in a slowdown in the annual rate of growth in the developed world. GDP growth in the OECD was 0.7% higher in the fourth quarter of 2012 than it was a year earlier, down from the 1.2% annual pace of expansion in the year to the third quarter of 2012. Among the major seven economies, the US showed the fastest annual growth, expanding by 1.5% between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2012. Italy was the weakest performer, contracting by 2.7% over the same period. For 2012 as a whole, GDP growth in the OECD stood at 1.3%, down from 1.9% in 2011.