Support migrant centric journalism today and donate
Spain posted its largest population increase ever last year, gaining more than 900,000 residents in a surge due almost exclusively to immigration, the Spanish government said. Spain granted amnesty to 700,000 illegal immigrants in 2005.
The 2.1% rate of growth in the population is included in a report presented yesterday to the government by the National Statistics Institute. It said Spain's population as of January stood at 44.1 million.
The rate of increase was well above the 0.5% for the 25-nation European Union as a whole and 0.63% for the 11 EU countries that use the euro as their currency.
Spain's torrid growth rate is matched only in some developing countries of Africa and Asia where birth rates tend to be much higher than in Europe, immigration expert Joaquin Arango of Madrid's Complutense University was quoted as saying by the newspaper El Pais.
