The international market for Italian Christmas cakes like panettone and pandoro and other types of traditional festive confectionery is worth close to one billion euros, artisans association Confartigianato said on Saturday, Azernews reports, citing ANSA.

It said that last year the value of the exports of these products amounted to 980 million euros, an increase of 9.7% with respect to the previous year.

It said the top importer of Italian Christmas cakes and sweet products was France, which snapped up 194 million euros worth last year, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.

On the domestic market, Confartigianato said Italian people are set to spend around 15.9 billion euros on food and drink over the Christmas period.