The last five years saw a massive 500% increase in South Africans emigrating to New Zealand.

If they keep it up, there’ll be more South Africans than sheep living there, and as the country with the highest density of sheep per unit area in the world, that’s saying something.

New Zealand isn’t the only country attracting expats, though, as evident in new data recently published by the UK’s office for national statistics.

According to BusinessTech, the data, based on the country’s annual population survey and correct as of June 2019, provides insight into the number of overseas-born people living permanently in the UK, including South Africans.

The survey shows that country with the largest overseas population is India, with an estimated 837,000 Indian people currently living in the UK.

This is closely followed by Poland (827,000 people) and Pakistan (533,000 people) who ranked in second and third place respectively.

The large Indian population isn’t surprising if we consider England’s colonial history. Up until 1949, when the British Nationality Act 1948 came into effect, citizens of any colony or dominion in the British Empire were automatically considered British subjects.

After 1949, former colonial subjects could register themselves as British citizens and retain citizen status – a rule that was in effect until 1981.

South Africa was ranked in eighth position, with an estimated 255,000 people currently living in the country.

By comparison, there were 246,000 South Africans living in the UK as at the end of 2018. This means that there has been an effective net gain of 9,000 people.

Here’s the full table of overseas populations residing in the UK:

BusinessTech

255 000 South Africans – I hope they’re all planning on wearing their Bok jerseys this festive season.

Home Affairs is currently working on making entry into South Africa visa-free for a number of countries including China and India. They would also like the UK to consider allowing South Africans to enter their borders visa-free (something which we were able to do until a number of fraudulent passports were found).

Fingers crossed…

[source:businesstech]