Chinese citizens are the 10th largest foreign population group within the European Union’s 27- member states in 2009, according to a Eurostat report.
The total number of foreigners living in an EU country from which they are not citizens is 31.9 million, of which 11.9 million are citizens of another member state and 20 million from a third country, said the report published on Tuesday by Eurostat, the statistical arm of the EU.
In EU’s top 10 biggest non-national groups, Turkish citizens rank first, representing 7.5 percent of the total EU foreign population in 2009. As for Chinese citizens, they account for 2.1 percent, thus becoming the 10th largest group.
Some half of non-EU foreign population are mainly from Turkey, Albania and Russia, while around 25 percent come from India and China.
Eurostat also pointed out that non-nationals bring a younger population to the EU, with a median age of 34.3 years (36.9 for the EU non-nationals and 33.0 for citizens of non-EU countries) against 40.6 years in the EU-27 population.