London, Brussels, Luxembourg and Hamburg had best GDP per capita in 1999 - Prague, Bratislava and Cyprus in the lead among candidate countries

Brussels, 29/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - According to information provided by Eurostat on Tuesday, the GDP per capita of the 211 regions of the EU varied in 1999 between 51% of the EU average in the French regions of Reunion and Guyana, as well as Ipeiros in Greece, to 242% of the average in the Inner London region of the United Kingdom. Just over 10% of the regions were about 125% of the EU average, and more than 20% were below 75% of this average. Per capita GDP in the 56 regions of the candidate countries ranged between 18% of EU average in the North East region of Romania to 124% in the Praha region of the Czech Republic. Eurostat underlines that four regions were clearly way ahead of the other in the ranking of regional GDP in 1999: Inner London in the United Kingdom (242% on average), Brussels-Capital in Belgium (217%), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (186%) and Hamburg in Germany (183%). Of the 22 regions exceeding the 125% level, five were in Germany, four in Italy, three in the Netherlands, two each in Austria, Finland and the United Kingdom and one each in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Sweden. Eurostat recalls that, in some regions, the per capita GDP figure tends to be overestimated because of commuter flows. Ten of the 13 regions of Greece, 6 of the 7 regions of Portugal, as well as 8 new German Länder, 7 regions of Spain, 5 regions of Italy, the 4 French Overseas Departments, 3 regions of the United Kingdom and one of Belgium, Austria and Finland were among the regions with GDP lower than 75% of the average. Some 66 million inhabitants lived in these 46 regions, i.e. 17.5% of the EU population.

In the candidate countries, four regions recorded a per capita GDP higher or equal to 75% of the EU average in 1999: Prague, in the Czech Republic (124%), Bratislava in the Slovak Republic (95%), Cyprus (85%) and Közép-Magyarország in Hungary (75%). Eight regions, including 4 in the Czech Republic, were around 50% and 75% of the EU average, and 9 - including 5 in Romania and 4 in Bulgaria - did not reach 25% of this average.