THE annual inflation in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) area was stable at 1.2% in November compared to October, the organisation said last week.

In their updated consumer prices report of the 37 member countries spanning North and South America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific, the OECD said energy prices continued to diminish by 8.1%, a faster pace than in October when they went down 7.7%.

Meanwhile, food price inflation slowed to 3.3% compared with 3.6% in October.

"OECD annual inflation excluding food and energy was also stable at 1.6% in November 2020," said the international organisation.

In November, annual inflation was stable in the United States at 1.2%, but slowed in the United Kingdom to 0.6% from 0.9%. Inflation rates picked up in Canada and France, rising to 1% and 0.2% respectively the same month.

In Japan, Germany and Italy, overall prices continued to fall in November by 0.9%, 0.3% and 0.2% respectively, compared to the previous month.

In the Euro area, annual inflation and inflation excluding food and energy remained stable for the third consecutive month in November at -0.3% and 0.2% respectively.

"Eurostat's flash estimate for December points to another month of stability in both measures (i.e. -0.3% and 0.2%)," the OECD said.

Annual inflation in the G20 area as a whole decreased to 2% compared with 2.2% in November.

However, among non-OECD G20 economies, annual inflation decreased in Argentina to 35.8%, China to -0.5%, India to 5.3% and South Africa to 3.2%.

In their global outlook, the OECD projected a GDP decline of 4.5% with the pandemic wiping out over 10 years of employment progress and reversing the positive efforts being made by OECD countries to tackle poverty.