The recently released study Purchasing Power Europe 2013/2014 undertaken by international marketing company GfK reveals the regional distribution of consumers’ purchasing power in 42 European countries. The spectrum ranges from 4.5 times the European average in Liechtenstein to one-tenth the average in Moldova.
General purchasing power refers to the money available to consumers for all expenditures related to food, accommodation and services as well as consumer purchases. Inhabitants of the European countries with the highest purchasing power must devote a large portion of their income to rent and generally more expensive living costs.
According to the study, a total of approximately €8.62 trillion is available to European consumers in 2013 for spending and saving. This corresponds to an average per-capita purchasing power of €12,890 for the 42 countries under review. Considerable discrepancies remain between the income available to inhabitants of these 42 countries for consumer spending.
Annual consumers’ purchasing power in our country reaches € 2,329: Belarus, Ukraine (€ 2,206) and Moldova (€ 1,284) made the top three poorest states among these 42 European countries. Moldova is once again in last place with only around €1,284 per person. This amounts to less than one-tenth of the European average of approximately €12,370 per person; this latter figure roughly corresponds to the purchasing power of Spain.
Liechtenstein remains in the top position with a per-capita purchasing power of €58,844. Switzerland takes second place with €36,352, followed by Norway with €31,707 of per-capita purchasing power.
GfK is one of the world’s largest research companies, with around 13,000 experts working to discover new insights into the way people live, think and shop, in over 100 markets, every day.
