The more accurate figures is 22.3% of those people in Portugal now living elsewhere, the most popular destination in recent years being the ‘old ally’ Britain.
The number of emigrants born in Portugal now has exceeded 2.3 million, 22.3% of the Portuguese population.
Rui Pena Pires, coordinator of the Emigration Observatory, who has presented the 2015 emigration report highlights, "with surprise" the increase of emigration to Angola and the continuing community of Portuguese living in France.
The number leaving stayed level at 110,000 which still is considered high and not matched by immigrants. "It is unlikely in the coming years that there will be a reduction in the volume of emigration to pre-crisis 2008 levels."
Portugal is the 27th country in the world list of emigrants, the seventh highest in Europe.
In 2015, emigration rose in the UK (UK), Spain, Denmark and Angola but eased off in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Norway.
France took in around 18,000 Portuguese and Angola, 6,715.
Rui Pena Pires explained: "emigration is higher than 100,000 people per year, that is at a level that, in recent history has only been matched in the 1960s and 1970s."
"It is easy to note the specific effect of the crisis since 2008 and then with particularly during the adjustment programme between 2011 and 2014, in the growth of Portuguese emigrants," commented the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva.
The United Kingdom received 32,301 Portuguese in 2015, a new high which make the UK the preferred choice for the Portuguese.
There was a resumption of emigration to Spain, up 12% for the second consecutive year, and an acceleration of emigration to Angola, a growth of 31.7% compared to 2014.
Angola is the fifth most popular emigration destination behind the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
The Emigration Observatory data is based on the number of those registering in their new countries so will not include those working in the grey economy.
Comments
This statistic is an indictment of the Portuguese ruling classes
His rant, so rare - so therefore so important - given the way so much of the Portuguese hatred is hidden behind their language, shows the dangers 'our' Way of life faces from this alien species. Magueijo, having supped at the British table for the previous 25 years, suddenly breaking cover. Making clear what really lay behind the empty smiles of so many tens of thousands of them. If reading this in the UK - some could be squatting, claiming UK benefits, in your street today ...
This 'old ally' nonsense needs to be seen by those of us that are British exactly as today's Portuguese do - as a very sick joke. It has no value at all to a Portuguese and the simplest scan of their children's school history books shows far better the indoctrinated poison within them against the British and the British Way of Life. If only the EU had not let them in we British would never have assumed they shared any of the EU values such as the basic Equality before the Law and Equality of Opportunity.