More immigrants than emigrants

• Population growth accelerating
• More immigrants from Europe
• Mortality rate higher
  

In the first six months of 2008, the population increased by nearly 30 thousand, because more people arrived in the Netherlands than left the country. Net migration has not been positive since the second half of 2003. According to the latest figures released by Statistics Netherlands, the population is growing more rapidly than last year.

Two in every three immigrants came from Europe. With 6.9 thousand, most immigrants during the first half of 2008 came from Poland. The number of immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania was 2.6 thousand and 1.2 thousand respectively. On 1 July this year, 64 thousand Poles, nearly 11 thousand Bulgarians and over 12 thousand Romanians were included in the Dutch municipal population registers. The Dutch population totalled 16.4 million on 1 July 2008.

Births (89.8 thousand) as well as mortality (69.4 thousand) increased marginally. The current increase in the number of deaths puts an end to an exceptionally long period (since 2002) of declining mortality.