Growth of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) region, which accounts for over 60% of the global economy, declined to 0.4% in the last three months of 2010 as compared to 0.6% in the September quarter, 2010, raising concerns about the pace of global economic recovery
The OECD comprises 34 countries, including the US, the UK, Germany and France.
After registering good expansion in the first half of 2010, most of the European economies are seeing slow growth and rising unemployment.
"Gross domestic product (GDP) in the OECD area grew by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2010, down from the 0.6% growth recorded in the previous quarter," Paris-based OECD, a grouping of mostly developed nations, said in a statement today.
Economic contractions in Japan and the UK added to the sluggishness in growth. While Japanese GDP fell 0.3% in the final three months of 2010, European major UK's GDP dropped 0.5% during the same period.
OECD noted that slowdown in Japan partly reflected the "unwinding of stimulus measures to boost domestic demand", whereas severe weather conditions adversely impacted the British economy.
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Earlier this week, official data had showed that German and French economies grew 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively, in the 2010 December quarter.
During the same three months, the 16-nation euro zone -- grouping of countries that share common currency euro -- expanded less-than-expected at 0.3%.
The American economy rose 0.8% in last quarter of 2010 as compared to 0.6% expansion in the previous three months.
Meanwhile, latest data showed that OECD economies grew 2.9% in 2010 after contracting as much as 3.5% in the previous year.
Many developed and developing countries are grappling with diverse problems such as rising unemployment levels, soaring inflation and widening fiscal deficit.