Maltese people spend less than their European counterparts on items of clothing and footwear, a Eurostat study found.

Local households spend 4.5 per cent of their total expenditure on clothes and shoes, compared to households in the EU which spent 4.9 per cent in 2016.

Households’ annual expenditure on clothes and footwear is slightly higher than the amount Europeans spend on their health, the study noted.

At 6.8 per cent, those from Estonia devote the largest share of their total expenditure to clothes and shoes. Those in Portugal came in second, at 6.3 per cent, followed by Italy, Austria and Lithuania.

The study found that the amount of money allocated to clothing and footwear in households in EU member states has been declining since 2006.

Splurge slightly more than the EU average on alcohol and tobacco

Malta had the fifth largest decline with expenditure on clothes and shoes down by 0.8 percentage points in the past decade, according to the study.

Polish people, in contrast, were found to be spending much more on clothes and shoes these past 10 years. The study shows that the increase in expenditure was the highest in Poland in the past decade.

Maltese may be spending less than Europeans on clothes, but they splurge slightly more than the EU average on alcoholic beverages and tobacco: 4 per cent compared with 3.9 per cent.

Maltese people also spend the least on housing (10.3 per cent), according to the report, with Denmark at the top of the list at 29.1 per cent.

But Malta spends the most on furnishings and household equipment, at 7 per cent, the report concluded.