So far, how many Chinese people have Greek legal residence permits, and there is no authoritative data. Today, I spent some time finding the official data as of August 31, 2022 on the official website of the Greek Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, which can give the latest and most authoritative data - how many Chinese hold legal residence permits in Greece?
. As of August 31, 2022, a total of 754,862 foreigners have legal residence status in Greece. Among them, 219,727 people came from other EU countries - they could live and work legally in Greece without applying; 475,384 people came from countries outside the EU, and they obtained legal residence status in Greece through work, study abroad, family reunion, investment, etc.; 59,751 people obtained official refugee status recognized by Greece.
. As of August 31, 2022, among the 475,384 citizens from countries outside the EU who hold legal residence status in Greece, the number of people with Albanian nationality was 291,868, a proportion of 61.40%; the number of people with Chinese nationality (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) was 22,422, a proportion of 4.72%.
Georgian , 19884 people;
Pakistan , 18329 people;
Ukraine, 15030 people;
Russia, 14620 people;
Egypt , 10386 people;
India, 10184 people;
Bangladesh, 9273 people;
1 Philippines , 8777 people.
Albania is the poorest country in Europe
In order to live a good life
Hundreds of thousands of Albians cross mountains and rivers
Entering Greece to make a living
Obtaining the legal residence status of Greece
and even joining Greek nationality. Among the 59,751 people who have obtained the official Greek refugee status, the number of Chinese can be ignored. In this way, the number of people who obtain (hold) legal residence status in Greece with Chinese passport as the basic identity will not exceed 22,500 - the total number of people will not exceed 23,000 if they add up.
5. As of August 31, 2022, a total of 5,945 families from mainland China have obtained permanent residence status in Greece through the "Greece Golden Visa Program". Even if it is calculated based on the 3 people per family, there are nearly 20,000 people. In this case, there are only 2,500 Chinese who have obtained legal residence status in Greece through work, family reunion, etc. - in my impression, this number should be around 20,000. So, I communicated with several old Chinese friends I was familiar with, and the feedback I received was that after the residence status of a large number of Chinese people expired, due to the inefficiency and delay of the Greek Immigration Bureau, they still did not get a new residence identity card after submitting their renewal application for half a year to a year. Therefore, they did not appear in the data released by the Greek Immigration and Asylum Department.
In Greece, the proportion of "older" civil servants over 55 years old is close to 40%. How can such a high proportion of "older" civil servants provide efficient administrative services under the influence of "mentality" and "ability" factors? The Greek government departments are inefficient, so they naturally appear.
6. I have estimated the number of Chinese people who submitted a renewal application but did not get a new residence identity card. In this way, as of August 31, 2022, the number of Chinese people holding legal residence status in Greece exceeded 30,000.
Huo Qingchuan
October 16, 2022 at Songtao Bay, Athens, Greece
