Almost 1.45 million foreigners live in South Korea, among which 53.7 percent are Chinese (775,474), followed by Vietnamese (176,988), 12.2 percent, and Americans (69,704), 4.8 percent, according to numbers from South Korea’s Ministry of Security and Public Administration.

The number of foreign residents has been growing at a rate of about 20 percent annually since 2006, but the growth rate hit bottom this year because of a change in Korea’s visa policy.

According to the ministry, working visit visa was canceled last year, which caused many foreign workers to leave the country. However, a large number of visas were issued for Koreans with foreign nationalities. so the number of foreign residents still keeps growing.

The number of foreign residents increased by 36,054, or 2.6 percent over the last year, although the proportion of foreign workers dropped to 36 percent of all foreign residents without Korean citizenship from 42 percent last year, and the number reduced to 520,906 from 588,944.

The survey shows that 2.8 percent (almost 51 million) of Korean residents are foreigners, which includes long-term residents, Koreans of foreign origin and migrant spouses.