When thousands of people march in big cities for the US immigration law protest, the United Nations published a report indicating that the immigrants between different countries are increasing rapidly. So far, there have been up to 200 million immigrants around the world.

The "World Population Monitoring Report" was prepared for the annual conference of the UN Commission on Population and Development in this week. According to the report, by the end of 2005, the population of the immigrants that were born in a country and currently live in another country have reached 191 million. From 1990 to 2005 the average annual growth rate is about 1.4%. Approximately 75% of the international immigrants live in 28 countries, one fifth of them are in the United States. Developed countries are still the destinations for the migration. By 1990, 53% of the international migrants live in developed countries. By 2005 this ratio has risen to 61% with 1/3 of them living in Europe and 1/4 in North America.

International immigrants have considerable impact on the economic and social development of both the countries they move out from and the ones they move in. For example, the new immigrants are increasingly becoming the main source of population growth in developed countries because these countries have low birth rate. From 1990 to 1995, half of the population growth in developed countries was attributed to new immigrants. From 2000 to 2005, the figure was as high as 75%. It is expected that by 2010, all the population growth in developed countries will come from new immigrants. Additionally, international immigrants are remitting more and more money to their original countries. By the end of 2004, the amount of the remittance have reached 226 billion dollars.

By People's Daily Online