Fri, 12 Jul, 2013 03:03:19 AM FTimes-STT Report, July 12  A man picked up a new passport from R-kiosk postal service in Espoo on May 15, 2013. Photo - Lehtikuva A total of 4200 foreigners were granted Finnish citizenship in the first six months of this year, said the Finnish immigration department.
The number was 4550 in the corresponding period of the previous year, sources said, adding that this year most of the citizenships were awarded to the people from Russia and Somali followed by Afghanistan, Iraq and Estonia.
The authority granted 80 percent of the total applications submitted to the immigration department seeking citizenship this year.
A total of 4800 applications were submitted between January and June and the authority estimated that the total number of application will be about 10,000 at the end of this year.
Earlier, the Statistics Finland in a report released on May 14 said that a total of 9090 foreign citizens got Finnish citizenship last year.
The report said that the number of people getting Finnish citizenship in the year 2012 was ever highest since the country’s independence and the figure was 4,530 higher than of the year 2011.
The report also said that 96 percents of the new citizens also retained their former citizenship.
Out of the new citizens, 4,970 were women and 4,120 were men.
Most of the new citizens, numbering 2480, were from Russia, the report added.
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