PARIS, Jan 30 (Reuters) - France will include the estimated value of its illegal drugs trade in calculating its gross domestic product starting in May, the INSEE statistics institute said on Tuesday, in a move that could add more than 2 billion euros to the size of the economy.
The move comes as part of a broader revision of France's methodology for calculating key economic data and also includes changing the base year for growth calculations to 2014 from 2010 currently.
The official INSEE statistics institute said in a statement that the changes would have a "limited impact" on France's debt and deficit ratios, adding that it was expected to result in a lower external deficit.
INSEE said the EU statistics agency Eurostat had asked that the drugs trade be included in France's official figures to bring it into line with other countries.
"It will result in a very slight revision in the level of GDP," INSEE added.
An INSEE official, Ronan Mahieu, said the increase would be of the order of 0.1 percent of GDP. In France's 2.3 trillion euro ($2.86 trillion) economy, that works out at more than two billion euros.
Earlier on Tuesday INSEE said the French economy grew 1.9 percent last year, marking the best showing in six years for the euro zone's second biggest economy. ($1 = 0.8055 euros)
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas, additional reporting by Myriam Rivet; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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