Legal, not illegal immigrants behind population increase

A recent report by Eurostat indicates that legal immigration is the primary reason for last year's net increase of 3,340 in the Maltese population.

Some readers of timesofmalta.com posted comments bemoaning illegal immigration from Africa when it was reported on August 5 that the EU's statistics office cited immigration as the main reason for the population rising to 413,630.

Yet the study, which showed that the population increased by 890 people due to natural change and 2,450 people due to immigration, only took into account immigrants who had a legal right to remain in the country.

Natural change is the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths, while net migration is the difference between the number of immigrants and emigrants.

The NSO demographic figures for 2008 indicate that the majority of immigrants to Malta come from EU countries, and are consequently allowed to settle under the EU's freedom of movement laws.

A separate Eurostat report shows that besides Maltese, the second most common nationality of residents last year was British (4,100), followed by Indian (932), Bulgarian (763) and Libyan (574).

In addition, the latest statistics from Eurostat showing the citizenship of yearly arrivals dates from 2007. This shows that 5,434 legal immigrants that year were European, 844 were African, 367 were Asian, 69 were from the Americas and 16 were from Oceania.

By nationality, the highest number of immigrants were British (1,396), followed by people with Maltese nationality who had lived abroad (1,171), and then Bulgarians (444).

The highest number of African immigrants granted legal right to remain in Malta were Somalis (372), followed by Egyptians (216) and Libyans (135).

The recent Eurostat demographic report also indicated that despite already being the most densely populated country in the EU, Malta had the second the highest crude immigration rate.

Eurostat figures estimate that Malta's crude immigration rate was 22.0, second only to Luxembourg (36.3) and well ahead of neighbouring Italy (9.0) and fellow small state Cyprus (17.7).

This means that 22 immigrants arrived in Malta for every 1,000 people in the existing population, an increase from 16.5 in 2007.

Meanwhile, the crude emigration rate was 16, meaning 16 people out of every 1,000 emigrated from Malta. This is third highest rate in the EU, behind Cyprus (17) and Luxembourg (20.6).

Overall, Malta gained six people for every 1,000 people in the existing population through migration last year, an increase from 2.3 people per 1,000 in the year 2000.