LatinNews Daily Report - 07 June 2012

CENSUS | Immigration to Costa Rica plummets. On 6 June the national institute of statistics (Inec) published the results of the 2011 census, which indicate that, although foreigners are still immigrating to Costa Rica, they are doing so at a much slower pace. The 1984 and 2000 censuses showed that the foreign population was increasing by 7.5% year-on-year in the period between each survey; however, in the period between 2000 and 2011, the foreign resident population only increased by 2.4% per year. This massive slowdown is partly explained by the decrease of immigrant flows from Nicaragua. (Nicaraguans make up 75% of all foreign residents in Costa Rica.) While in previous periods the Nicaraguan resident population expanded by an average 10% per year, in the period studied by the latest census it rose by 2.2% per year.