Some 16,577 new immigrants arrived in Israel in 2012, down 2 percent from 2011, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

This continues the downward immigration trend since 2002. On average, 18,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel each year between 2003 and 2011. The numbers were drastically different in the previous decade: Between 1990 and 2002 an average of 84,000 new immigrants arrived each year.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, about 3.2 million people have immigrated, 41 percent of them after 1990.

A breakdown of the 2012 data shows that 7,234 immigrants (44 percent of the total) arrived from the former Soviet Union, 2,432 from Ethiopia, 2,290 from the U.S., 2,048 from Ukraine and 1,653 from France.