Drugs trade adds €2.7 billion to French GDP

PARIS, May 30 (AFP): The illegal drug trade contributes 2.7 billion euros ($3.1 billion) to the French economy each year, the statistics agency Insee said Wednesday.

The marijuana trade alone is worth about one billion euros and the cocaine trade about 800,000 euros, Insee said, estimating that drug trafficking accounted for about 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

France has said it will start including money spent on illicit drugs in its GDP figures this year, complying with a longstanding request from Eurostat, the EU's statistics office.

Eurostat in 2013 asked EU members to factor in drug trafficking and prostitution to harmonise GDP measures across the bloc, where some countries such as the Netherlands had already been including the proceeds of prostitution and drugs in their national accounts.

Several EU members have already applied the new rules, which have nudged GDP figures significantly higher in Italy and Spain particularly.

France however drew the line at estimating the amounts generated by prostitution.

Its estimates on the value of the drug trade are based on household surveys on drug use, which show the French spending about 3.1 billion euros a year on illegal substances.