Rabat – After Ukraine and Albania, Morocco ranked third on the list of the top 10 receivers of residence permits in Italy last year.
According to data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat), “for every 100 resident foreigners, there are respectively 52 new citizens of Albanian origin and 44 of Moroccan origin,” noting that “the average value for non-EU citizens is just over 32 new citizens for every 100 foreigners.”
In its report on “non-European citizens in Italy 2021-2022,” the institution also found that for all the top 10 foreign communities in the country, the main reason for entering Italy is family reunification, which accounted for over 73% of Moroccan entries in 2021.
In January last year, nearly 1.5 million citizens of foreign origin acquired Italian citizenship, more than 83% of which are non-European citizens, the report highlighted.
Women account for 56% of the total, with 18% being Albanian and 15.5% being Moroccan, the statistics showed, adding that other origins did not exceed 4%.
Read also: Moroccans Are Top Receivers of Residency Permits in France, Spain, Belgium
The report also noted that 159,000 applications for temporary protection were filed at the end of September, while acquisitions of citizenship decreased by 8% between 2020 and 2021.
The figures also revealed that new citizens are concentrated in six Center-North regions in Italy, including Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, Lazio, and Tuscany.
At the beginning of 2021, they housed 73.5% of people who got Italian nationality and resided permanently in the country.
According to the report, 241,595 residence permits were awarded last year in the country, up 135,000 from 2020.
Despite a considerable increase in work permits, the report found that flows have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but there has been no meaningful recovery.
