And still they come

Immigration still climbing
Saturday February 03, 2007
By Brian Fallow ?

The net inflow of migrants was still running strong in December with a gain of 1160 pushing the total for the whole of 2006 to 14,610, figures from Statistics New Zealand show.

It continues the recovery in net immigration since the annual figure bottomed-out around 6000 in October 2005. The trend has been driven by increasing arrivals. Departures have fallen too, but gradually.

During 2006 there were 82,700 permanent and log-term arrivals - people declaring in their airport arrival cards that they intended to stay for a year or more - an increase of 5 per cent on 2005.

The number of permanent and long-term departures - those leaving for at least a year - fell to 68,100, 5 per cent fewer than in 2005.

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