Brussels, 04/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - According to a Eurostat report covering 2000 published on Monday, average hourly labour costs (in industry and services) were lowest in Portugal (8.13 euro), Greece (10.40), Spain (14.22) and Ireland (17.34), whereas the highest were noted in Sweden (28.56), Denmark (27.10) and Germany (26.54). In the six other Member States for which figures were available, hourly costs were close to the EU average of 22.70 euro. Among the candidate countries (with the exception of Malta), the average labour costs per hour in industry and services in 2000 ranged from 2.42 euro in Latvia and 2.71 in Lithuania to 10.74 in Cyprus and 8.98 in Slovenia. The average for the candidate countries was 4.21 euro, more than five times lower than the EU average. Hourly labour costs were 1.35 euro in Bulgaria and 1.51 in Romania.