Ielts Writing Task 1

The table compares the breakdown of consumer expenditure including three categories of products and services among five European nations in 2002.


Overall, the distribution of national income to fast-moving consumer goods in each country was much higher than the others. Additionally, Turkey made up the largest proportion of the budget for Food/ Drinks/ Tobacco and Leisure/ Education, but that shifted towards Italy in terms of fashion category.


As regards the consumer spending on FMCG products, a huge gap was seen amongst the researched nations. In particular, the figure for Turkey dominated the list at approximately 32%, whilst that of Ireland was slightly lower, at nearly 29%. Meanwhile, 18.8% of Spanish’s income went on food, drinks, and tobacco. The statistics of Italy and Sweden, by contrast, roughly tied at 16%.


Concerning the allocation of customer expenditure to Clothing/ Footwear and Leisure/ Education, there was another substantial variation in each surveyed country. Particularly, the percentage of Turkey remained the lion’s share in the field of leisure and education at about 4% which was more than double that of Spain (1.98%). At the same time, the expenditure on garments of Italy ranked first at exactly 9%, compared with the bottom position of the figure for Sweden with over 5%.