27 January 2006

New estimates of ethnic group populations have been released and are set to help develop multi-lingual e-government services.

The figures are from the Office for National Statistics and cover the years 2001-2003.

In mid-2003, the non-white British population in England stood at an estimated 7.1 million, a rise of at least 506,300 since two years previous.

It is hoped that armed with this updated information, national and local e-government services can figure out which languages they must prioritise in their implementation of multi-lingual services on their websites.

The fastest growth in population between 2001 and 2003 in England was within Chinese ethnic groups, which saw an average annual rate of 11.1 per cent growth.

London still has the largest concentration of non-white British ethnic groups, with almost 41 per cent of the capital's population being recorded as non-white in 2003.

The north-east has the lowest proportion of non-white groups but the region is experiencing the highest average growth rate in different ethnicity groups.

© Adfero Ltd

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