19/01/2013 00:00
TW
0
Humphrey Carter

PALMA
THE Balearics is the region with the highest proportion of foreign residents in Spain.
According to the latest report published by the Institute for National Statistics, at the end of last year, there were 190'170 non-Spanish residents registered with their town halls in the Balearics - 18.45 percent, nearly one in five.

For the first time ever, there is a 50/50 split between non-EU and European Union citizens.
The Germans continue to have the largest EU community with 29, 189 residents living in the Balearics along with 19'803 Britons, 11'933 Italians and 7'126 French.

However, the number of citizens from new EU members states like Romania and Bulgaria are growing fast.
At the end of 2007, there were 7'025 Romanians, 6.369 Bulgarians and 2'608 Poles registered in the Balearics and those figures, in particular, are expected to continue rising sharply over the course of this year.

The non European Union citizen figures show that South Americans are the predominant continent. There are apparently 53'101 Ecuadorians, not including the 800 which were granted Spanish nationality last year, registered in the Balearics. The region is also home to 13'100 Argentines, 11'129 Colombians, 9'026 Bolivians and 4.295 residents from Uruguay. The report has also revealed that there are a total of 25'495 Africans living here. The most numerous are the 17'935 from Morocco, 2'175 Nigeria and 1'987 from Senegal although there are many more from other parts of Africa and South America as well as Asia, the United States and the Middle east.