One in 10 people in Belgium are foreigners

23 September 2004

BRUSSELS – Almost a tenth of the population officially registered in Belgium is foreign, according to figures published on Thursday.

The Interior Ministry’s Population Service calculated that on August 16 there were 964,990 foreigners – 9.28 percent of Belgium’s total population which stands at around 10.4 million people.

The Italian community is the largest foreign contingent with 181,650 people; there are 116,939 French men and women here; and 103,870 people from the Netherlands.

Out of the non-European communities in Belgium, Moroccans are the largest group of foreigners, with 81,924 residents. There are 43,715 Turks.

The rest of the top 10 of foreign communities is made up of Spaniards, Germans, UK citizens, Portuguese and residents from the countries that now make up what was the Belgian Congo.

The countries population from Eastern Europe and includes 20,000 Yugoslavians and 14,000 Russians.

There are fewer Americans here, with just 11,811 recorded.

And there are clusters of citizens from farther flung corners of the world, including two people from the Bahamas, six from the Fiji Islands and seven people from Monaco.

Subject: Belgian news