Europeans have an average of EUR 14,739 per person available for spending and saving in 2019, reads the latest study “GfK Purchasing Power Europe 2019”. However, disposable net income among the 42 studied countries varies significantly: Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg have the highest average purchasing power, while Moldova, Kosovo and Ukraine have the lowest.
Romania: Average per capita purchasing power of EUR 5,881
Romania is in thirty-second place in the European rankings with an average per capita purchasing power of EUR 5,881. As such, Romanians have around 60 percent less than the European average. The county of Bucharest leads the rankings with an average per capita purchasing power of EUR 10,452. This equates to 78 percent more money than the rest of the country. At the other end of the rankings is the county of Vaslui, which has an average per capita purchasing power of EUR 3,706. This puts Vaslui around 37 percent below the national average and around 75 percent below the European average, says GfK.
Timis county ranks second, with EUR 7,564 purchasing power, while Cluj comes third with EUR 7,457. Ilfov ranks 4th, Brasov 5th, Sibiu 6th, Hunedoara 7th, Arad 8th, Arges-9th and Prahova 10th.
Europeans have just under EUR10 trillion at their disposal in 2019. Per capita purchasing power grew by approximately 3.5 percent in 2019, which is significantly higher than last year’s value. This corresponds to an average per capita purchasing power of EUR 14,739. The rankings show substantial differences between the studied countries with respect to the amount available to Europeans for food, living, services, energy, private pensions, insurance, vacation, mobility and consumer purchases.
Liechtenstein takes first place again with a per capita purchasing power of EUR 67,550. This far exceeds the values of the other countries and is more than 4.5 times the European average. With EUR 42,067 per person, Switzerland comes in at second place, as was the case last year. All other countries in the top-ten rankings also have significantly above-average per capita purchasing power. Luxembourg makes it into the top three this year with a per capita purchasing power of €35,096, ousting Iceland from third to fourth place. Sweden switches places with Finland, falling from ninth to tenth place.
Sixteen of the countries considered by the study have above-average per capita purchasing power, while twenty-six fall below the European average. Ukraine takes last place with a per capita purchasing power of EUR 1,830.
“GfK Purchasing Power Europe is an important benchmark of the economic strength of a given region, as there are major differences in per capita purchasing power both within and between European countries,” explains Simone Baecker-Neuchl, expert in GfK´s Geomarketing solution area. “It’s therefore crucial that we calculate our international data using consistent quality standards. This makes it possible for companies from all industries to carry out meaningful comparisons between these countries and identify the European regions with the highest purchasing power. These insights offer indispensable support for business decisions related to international location planning and evaluation as well as outside sales management and marketing.”
Read the rest of the study here.