Spain’s National Statistics Institute has announced that the illegal sex and drugs trade were among activities that have boosted Spanish output (or input if you look at it another way

;-)

) by nearly €10bn

This is the first time that new EU rules to allow illegal activities to be counted in GDP calculations have been estimated in the Spanish economy. The data calculated for 2010 showed that sex, drugs, gambling and tobacco smuggling accounted for 0.87% (€9.4bn) of the economy.

Production was recalculated with the new rules and showed that Spain’s GDP was €26bn higher last year than previously estimated

There was also some good news for Spain’s ailing property market as house mortgage approvals for July rose to 28.8% y/y from 19.0% in June and total mortgage lending rose 13.3% from 13.2% prior y/y. The number of mortgages rose 18.3% from 10.9% in June y/y