Demographics

Foreign population grows by almost 10,000

The EU population increased by almost 3,000. | Joan Torres

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma14/12/2018 18:27

Over the first six months of this year, immigration to the Balearics was 9,704. As a result, the Balearics had one of the highest levels of immigration among the various Spanish regions.

In percentage terms, a 0.83% rise is low compared with previous years. Even so, between 1 July 2003 and 1 July this year, the foreign population of the islands went up from 110,986 to 239,901. This 116% rise dwarfed the 20% increase in Spanish citizens who had moved from the mainland.

Over the six months there were 2,974 more people from the European Union (the nationalities have not been specified in the figures given by the National Statistics Institute). This hints at a reverse in trend, with there having been a loss of Britons and Germans - from their municipal registers anyway. Tax reasons are cited for that fall. The EU population of the Balearics as of 1 July was 135,261.

From South America, there were 2,309 new arrivals. There had also been a decrease in the numbers of citizens from South America, who had returned during the years of economic crisis. The number for 1 July this year was 40,695, still some 20,000 fewer than had been the case before the crisis.

Of the individual islands, Majorca registered a foreign population increase of 7,454 to 914,651.