Just merely for comparison's sake, here is the 2.5mm2 we use here in New Zealand:

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All 3 conductors are stranded (7/0.67), they don't come pre-twisted like that, I just twisted them up to make the pic a wee bit neater.

As I've mentioned before here, our TPS (Tough-Plastic Sheathed) cables have a metre-marking printed on the outer sheath, to tell you how much cable is left on the reel.
Here's what it looks like:

[Linked Image]