The Metropolis

Why the Europe furore matters to Londoners

Mike Pollitt | Tuesday 13 December, 2011 10:29

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Money, of course.

The city sells more than twice the value of stuff to Europe (the top line in the chart) as it does to North America or Asia. If Europe goes tits up, we won’t be far behind.

For example, over £1bn worth of clothes are shipped out of London each year. 11% of that goes to Italy, and 5% to Greece. If they stop buying there, jobs start going here. This is why this stuff matters, because it will ultimately affect how much money you have to spend on beer and boxsets.

Chart and data taken from Melisa Wickham’s paper for GLA Economics – An analysis of London’s exports (pdf)

Bonus fact – the European country which spends the most money buying London’s goods is Belgium. Diamonds mostly, I suspect. Good old Belgium.

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