#AceWorldNews – SPAIN – September 26 – Prostitution, drug trafficking and other illegal activities have finally been included in Spain’s gross domestic product, boosting it by 9 billion euros according to the latest statistics.

Sex workers demonstrate in the centre of Madrid on February 15, 2014. (AFP Photo/Pedro Armestre)

Latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) reveals the drug trade, prostitution, illegal weapon sales and gambling contributed some €9 billion, or 0.87 percent of country’s total GDP in 2013. The new figures show that drug trafficking comprised 0.5 percent of GDP while illegal sex trade made up 0.35 percent of the new total.

Overall, the recalculated figures increased Spain’s GDP by €26.2 billion to €1.05 trillion, reducing country’s debt ratio of 98.9 percent to 96.4 percent, according to the Bank of Spain.

The remaining increase to GDP was generated from the contributions of research and development and military armament.

Members of the platform of “Indignant Prostitutes” and their supporters staged a demonstration in central Barcelona to protest against the city’s plans to modify a law that seeks to prohibit street prostitution in the Catalan capital, April 26, 2012. (Reuters/Gustau Nacarino)

To assess the turnover of prostitution, the agency calculated the number of prostitutes working in Spain and consulted with sex clubs on the amounts they earn on average.

Prostitution in Spain was decriminalized in 1995. The trade itself is not directly addressed in the Criminal Code of Spain, but exploitation such as pimping is illegal.

At the same time prostitution is not considered a job and thus has no legal recognition.

Source: 

#ANS2014

#drugs, #gdp, #prostitution, #spain