29 November - 5 December 2012 www.euroweeklynews.com
Stat of week
50 per cent of exports from Catalonia to other parts of Spain would cease if it became an independent country, an Economic Studies Institute study has revealed.
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A EURO WEEKLY NEWS 8 PAGE SPECIAL SECTION
€23,000 wedding bliss
Spanish marriages give GDP and jobs a boost SPAIN’S Gross Domestic Product (GDP) benefits by 0.34 per cent thanks to people getting married. Weddings also provide direct employment for 87,897 people. The average cost of a Spanish wedding hovers around €23,000. This drops to €20,300 for a civil ceremony but rises to €25,000 for a church wedding with a nuptial mass and sermon. Much of the outlay for a
Revealed! The pay-day secrets THIRTY per cent of women and the under-25s earn less than €1,008 a month. And regardless of gender or age, the average earnings of all employees remain below a pre-tax €1,218, according to latest statistics from the official INE agency. For the first time INE divided last year’s 15,096,100 registered employees into three wage bands. The first bracketed 4,528,830 people - 30 per cent of the total - who earned less than €1,282 a month. The majority - six million - fell into the second, earning between €1,218 and €2,071. The third wage band consisted of 4.5 million employees earning more than €2,071 a month.
Just over 43 per cent of women earned less than €1,218 a month, and 30 per cent less than €1,008, compared to 18 and 10 per cent of males, the statistics revealed. The tendency of women to work part-time was the principal reason for the disparity, according to INE analysts. Whether they worked full or part-time, men occupied 35.5 per cent of the third and highest wage band, compared with 23.8 per cent of women. Best-payers in 2011 were the finance and insurance sectors where 72 per cent of workers earned salaries of more than €2,071. The lowest-paid were domestic employees, where 84 per cent came into the first wage band.
Spanish wedding goes on the reception, which works out at around €100 to €150 per guest, according to the IE Business School’s White Paper study on Weddings. The bride’s dress sets the couple back anywhere up to €1,800 and the honeymoon costs approximately €3,000. A total of €3,615.7 million is spent each year on weddings, the study revealed.
B
usiness extra
Straight face
AN American plastic surgeon is offering Botox to eliminate facial expressions that give away a winning or losing hand in poker, labelling the $600-$800 injections of facial filler treatment ‘PokerTox’.
Sexy growth THE sex toy market in China is expected to grow by around 40 billion yuan (€5 billion) by 2014. Sex toys in China are sold in ‘adult health’ shops, hotel mini-bars, and by the checkout in convenience stores.
New chocoholics boost business EUROPEAN chocolate manufacturers take note! India - as one of the fastest growing economies in the world - is proving that its inhabitants have a very sweet tooth. And this has led the nation to become the fastest growing chocolate market in the world. The latest research by Mintel shows that chocolate
HAPPY OCCASIONS: Weddings add a healthy boost to the Spanish economy.
consumption in India almost doubled from 2008 and last year, with sales of chocolate increasing from $418 million (€326m) in 2008 to $857 million (€669m) in 2011. While domestic consumption in India is currently low if compared with other more mature markets, including Germany at eight kilos per head, or the UK and France at six kilos respectively, the potential is huge.
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