The number of Romanian immigrants in Italy almost doubled in 2007 to push the overall immigrant population up by almost 17%, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported Thursday.
The 16.8% yearly rise, almost half a million people, was ''the highest ever recorded in the history of immigration into our country,'' ISTAT said.
''It was caused by the strong rise in Romanian nationals who grew by 82.7% in the last year,'' it said.
Emigration from Romania surged after it joined the European Union on January 1, 2007.
Romanians have now surpassed Albanians as the single biggest community in Italy, with over 625,000 members compared to 340,000 in 2006.
The number of Albanians rose from 375,000 to some 400,000.
Moroccans are third at 365,000, up 20,000, followed by Chinese and Ukrainians.
The top five accounted for 49% of the total immigrant population of some 3,400,000.
There are more immigrants in the north, 62.5% of the total, than in the centre (25%) or south (12.5%).
More than 260,000 immigrants became Italian citizens in 2007, mostly by marriage.
By comparison, in France, 303,000 immigrants were naturalised over the two years between 2005 and 2007.
The immigrant community represents 5.8% of the Italian population, up from 5% from 2006, in line with France and the UK but below Spain with 11.3%.
ISTAT confirmed that immigrants are keeping the overall population steady at around 59 million, making up for a fall in the number of native Italians.
