Undeclared legal activities and illegal activities account for 13 percent of Portugal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 22 billion euros, Portugal’s National Statistics Institute (Statistics Portugal) said Wednesday at a session on the new European System of Accounts (ESA2010).

The new European System of Accounts, which is due to be in place in September, requires that all statistics institutes of EU member countries include estimates of illegal activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution, in their National Accounts.

According to Statistics Portugal the estimated value of illegal activities is around 700 million euros, which would increase GDP by around 0.4 percentage points and increase the value of the black market to around 13.4 percent.

ESA2010 also requires a number of changes to accounting of categories such as research and development (positive impact) and production in duty free areas (negative impact), and changes in methodology are expected to add 2.5 percentage points to GDP. (macauhub/PT)