Growth in Germany's foreign population slows in 2017

Official data show the number of foreign citizens living in Germany last year increased by 5.8 percent, growing less than in the previous two years as migration from outside Europe slowed and new arrivals from other European countries rose.

The Federal Statistical Office said Thursday some 10.62 million people with only foreign citizenship were registered in Germany, a country of some 82 million people, at the end of 2017. That compared with around 10.04 million a year earlier.

Germany's foreign population grew by 11.7 percent in 2015 and 10.2 percent in 2016 as the country saw a large influx of migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere. But the strongest growth last year was in new arrivals from other countries in the European Union, particularly its newer eastern members.