Russians Top The Foreigners In Bulgaria

Out of these 24,000 foreigners in Bulgaria there are around 5,000 from the UK. I have met a few Russians here, not surprising as many older generation Bulgarians speak Russian as a second language. There are still strong links with Russia including business links and investment which Bulgaria relies on.

There are about 24 000 foreigners living in Bulgaria, making up 0.3 per cent of the country’s population, according to a new report by the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.

The report, released on December 16 2009, says that by far most of the foreigners living in Bulgaria are from countries outside the EU.

The three largest groups of foreigners in Bulgaria are Russians (9000, or 36.7 per cent of all foreigners in the country), Ukrainians (2200, or 8.8 per cent) and Greeks (1600, 6.6 per cent).

Eurostat said that as at January 1 2008, 30.8 million foreign citizens were living in the 27 EU member states, of which 11.3 million were citizens of another EU member state.

The remaining 19.5 million were citizens of countries outside the EU27, of which six million were citizens of other European countries, 4.7 million from Africa, 3.7 million of Asia and 3.2 million from the American continent.

Source: www.sofiaecho.com