Prostitution and the Illegal drug trade have pushed the UK past France in the global wealth league, a fresh analysis shows.
Britain jumped France and became the world’s fifth-largest economy, all with the help of its multi-billion pound sex and illegal drug industries, said the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
France refuses to comply with recent European Union regulations which add prostitution and illegal drugs to new pan-European accounting standards, because it does not deem them "voluntary commercial activities”.
A director of, France's statistics office, INSEE, referred to using drugs as a "dependency" that does not include "free will". Eric Dubois said prostitution resulted from "Mafia networks and trafficking illegal immigrants".
According to official figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) earlier this year, the sex trade added around £5.7 billion to the UK’s economy in 2013 while illegal drugs added £6.62 billion.
SRK/AS/MHB