Last update - 00:00 21/02/2007
2006 immigration to Israel sees 9 percent decrease from 2005
By Moti Bassok, Haaretz Correspondent
Only 19,264 people immigrated to Israel in 2006, down nine percent from 2005. It is the lowest number of immigrants recorded since 1988.
Nearly 3 million people have immigrated to Israel since the country's founding in 1948, roughly one third of which immigrated during the 1990s. Some 300 people immigrated from India in 2006- a fivefold increase from 2005.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, since 2002 - the year in which the major wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union came to an end- there has been a consistent downward trend in immigration.
In 2006, immigration was down to 1980s levels, during which time 9,000-24,000 people immigrated annually.
In 2006, only 2.7 people immigrated for every 1,000 veteran residents. In 1990-91, at the height of immigration from the former Soviet Union, that figure stood at an average of 35 per 1,000, and from 1990-2001, it averaged 17 per 1,000. Starting in 2003, that figure fell to below 3.8 per 1,000- also the rate during 1980-89, the period of lowest immigration in Israel's history.