Portugal welcomed nearly 47,000 foreigners in 2016, the highest figure since 2010 and gave refugee status or international protection to 400 people, double the 2015 number but lamentably low as Portugal rejected two out of every three asylum request.
"Portugal continues to fulfil its commitment, under the European migration agenda, to welcome and settle 4,574 people from Greece and Italy by December 2017," reads the report, skirting around the issue of low numbers choosing Portugal and more than half of those that initially do settle, leave shortly afterwards.
With regard to immigrants - in 2016, 46,900 people entered the country and did not leave, the first increase in the foreign population since 2009
At the end of 2016, there were 397,700 foreigners living in Portugal, 2.3% more than in 2015, "More than half of the increase may be related to free movement within the European Union. The number of immigrants from inside the European Union has increased by more than 40% in two years," reads the report
Tax refugees from France (3,500), Italy (3,100) and the United Kingdom (3,100) took advantage of the NHR scheme and the number of successful Golden Visa applicants increased in 2016 and 2017, the numbers recovering from the suspension of the programme in 2015 because of investigations into corruption.”
Regarding emigration, after an increase between 2010 and 2013, the departure of Portuguese national to live in another country stabilised in 2013, with an estimated 38,300 permanent emigrants and 58,900 temporary emigrants in 2016.
"Several initiatives have been presented to increase the attractiveness of Portugal for both foreigners and Portuguese émigrés," claimed the OECD.
Comments
Are you have a joke, (Portugal, under developed EU) have you looked at the level of poverty and drug addiction there is in England and in particular, the North of England. Do you realise that over 40% of school leavers in Britain cannot read or write or do not have any qualification.
Yup.
I hope that was sarcasm.
There are some active schemes for returnees, encouraging business creation.
I had the feeling that the report was written by a Portuguese government members, rather that the objective, independent and level-headed OECD....
An interesting comment, but what were they? As well as being presented, have they actually been put in place? It would be even more sensible to discourage Portuguese from emigrating in the first place.