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ONE in four residents of the Balearics will be a foreigner by the end of 2010, according to the latest statistics and predictions released by the National Institute of Statistics (Ine) yesterday. The report said that at the end of 2001, nearly five per cent of the population of Spain was foreign, and by the end of 2010 this will have risen to between 9 and 12 per cent, that is to say, between four and 5.5 million persons. In the Balearics, foreigners represented 8.18 per cent of the population at January 1 2001, and this had already risen to 10.88 per cent in 2002. The report says that by January 1 2011 between 23 and 25 per cent of the population, between 248'000 and 250'000 persons, will be foreigners. But, said Antoni Monserrat, these figures are based on a steady increase of 10'000 foreigners a year, presupposing the regulation of foreign immigration. Any changes in the law on foreigners could cause variations. Of the 68'749 foreigners registered as resident in the Balearics in 2001, 45.5 per cent (31'331) come from countries within the European Union; 30.5 per cent (21'019) have their origins in Latin American countries; 14.8 per cent (10'211) in Africa; 5.8 per cent (4'019) in European countries that are not in the EU; and 3.1 per cent (2'169) in Asia. Considering Spain as a whole, the combined grouping of Latin American peoples goes to make up 33 per cent of the resident foreign population in the country, the largest enclave; followed by those from the European Community (19 per cent); North Africans, fundamentally from Morocco and Algeria (17 percent); and the citizens of Eastern Europe (7 percent), a group dominated by Romanians, Bulgarians and Ukranians. By nationality, the largest number of foreigners in Spain have their origins in Morocco (247'872). They show a distinct preference for Catalonia although there are important enclaves in Andalucia and Madrid. Of the total foreign population, 60 per cent is concentrated in Island and Mediterranean coastal communities, particularly in Catalonia which is home to 20 per cent, and in Valencia (14 percent). Madrid, however, exerts the greatest influence housing 23 percent of the total foreign population in Spain. Only the Balearics, Madrid, Murcia, the Canary Islands and Valencia have numbers of foreigners in their communities which exceed 5 per cent of the regional population. Regarding the European Community, the British show a marked preference for Andalucia (32 percent) and Valencia (29 percent); the Germans are seen to be concentrated in the areas of Valencia (25 percent) and on the Canary Islands.