New residence permits issued to non-EU nationals last year more than doubled when compared to 2012, Eurostat figures show.

Among the 10,000-odd new residence permits handed out last year, more than 3,100, or 31.3 per cent, were issued to Libyan nationals and 866, almost nine per cent, to Russian citizens.

Eurostat said Malta issued a total of 13,798 residence permits in 2014, including 9,895 new ones.

Replying to criticism by the Opposition on the surge of residence permits since Labour returned to power, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said in Parliament earlier this month that among the 14,000 permits issued in 2014, half of them, 7,700, were renewals.

Questions sent to the Prime Minister’s Office about this apparent discrepancy were not answered at the time of writing.

The increase in residence permits by Identity Malta is currently under investigation following the discovery of alleged rackets

The increase in the number of residence permits issued last year put Malta on topof the EU ranking in terms of permits per 1,000 inhabitants.

While, last year, the other EU member states issued an average of 4.5 residence permits per 1,000 inhabitants, in Malta this stood at 23.2. In Malta’s case, most of the new residence permits last year, 29.6 per cent, were issued for educational purposes.

Family reasons were the second most popular reason for giving non-EU citizens the right to live in Malta.

The increase in residence permits by Identity Malta is currently under investigation following the discovery of alleged rackets. The police have already interviewed a number of Identity Malta employees and the government agency has suspended staff members until further notice. So far no government employees have been arraigned.

Last August, former Labour Party treasurer Joe Sammut was arraigned, facing a number of charges including setting up false commercial companies to obtain residence permits for Libyan nationals. The government declared fraudulent residence permits would be withdrawn.