By: Dr. Mike Campbell

If the crew of the Starship Enterprise was to beam down and look at the global economy right now with their Tricorders and other gizmos, they’d conclude that it was alive and still in a growth phase, if only barely.

Fears that the world was going into a double-dip recession in 2011 have proved groundless – a recession is defined as two successive quarters where the economy in question contracts, so that can’t happen now. Undoubtedly, the recovery, such as it is, could hardly be described as robust, but the UK, US France and Germany have all managed to post growth in each of the three quarters of 2011 for which data is available (on initial data, at least). Even Japan has managed to “turn the corner” and return to growth after being in recession since last year.

Germany, Europe’s powerhouse economy, has posted Q3 figures of 0.5% and also revised the Q2 figure up to 0.3% from 0.1%. France returned growth of 0.4% for Q3 which was stronger than many analysts had predicted, but it revised its Q2 data downwards, revealing that its economy contracted by 0.1%. The French and German economies benefited from strengthening consumer spending over the quarter. As a whole, the Eurozone is expected to post a growth figure of 0.2% for the quarter. The UK economy managed to grow by 0.5%, beating analyst’s projections.

The world’s largest economy managed to post growth figures of 2.5% for Q3, its fastest rate of expansion in a year. Japan put on growth of 1.5% in Q3, ending three consecutive quarters of contraction. Analysts had predicted that Japan would return to growth towards the end of the year as reconstruction activities, following the earthquake and tsunami of March, finally got into full swing.