Official figures: Almost 800,000 Romanians have residence in Italy

Romanians are still the largest community of immigrants in Italy as the number of Romanian citizens recorded officially in the country by January 1, 2009 stood at 780,421, followed way behind by Albanian and Moroccan communities with a little over 400,000 members each, according to newly released Italian Statistics Institute ISTAT data.

The report says that the number of Romanian-Italian marriages has fallen. While some 4,000 marriages of Italian men and Romanian women were recorded in 2006, only 2,300 were reported following Romania’s EU accession.

The report shows a high birth index among Romanian immigrant women as compared to Italian ones. Some 3300 newborns with Italian fathers and Romanian mothers were reported in 2007, while the number of newborns with both parents of Romanian origin reached 10,000.