Global growth appears to have been relatively strong during the last year. In the Anglo-Saxon world the economic expansion has now lasted six years. Growth in continental Europe also now appears to be relatively robust, after a significant slowdown in the first half of last year. The OECD economies are projected to grow by around 3 per cent this year. Despite this, there continues to be little evidence of emerging inflationary pressures. We anticipate that OECD inflation will average around 2 per cent in 1997, some 2–2½ percentage points lower than in the equivalent upswing in the late 1980s.