Iranians top MM2H list for third consecutive year

KUALA LUMPUR: Iranians formed the largest group of participants under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme last year. In fact, Iran has been the leading participant of the MM2H since 2008.

According to statistics, there were 1,499 MM2H participants last year, of whom 227 were from Iran. Interestingly, prior to 2008, Iranian participants were among the smallest groups with only nine in 2006 and 59 in 2007. However, in 2008 the number jumped to 227, then dipped to 212 in 2009.

Last year, the Japanese were the second largest group of MM2H participants with 195 while China was third with 154 participants, followed by the UK with 141 participants.

The rest of the top 10 participants under the MM2H programme last year were from Pakistan (77) Bangladesh (74), Singapore (73), Australia (63), India (51) and South Korea (49).
A total of 14,816 foreigners have taken up the programme to date since 2002 when the MM2H first began with only 818 participants. The numbers have increased steadily since with 2005 recording the best numbers so far at 2,615 participants.

Overall, since the programme began, it has attracted 2,452 Chinese who form the majority group, followed by Bangladesh citizens with 1,806 participants and 1,636 participants from the UK. The number of Japanese under the programme has reached 1,206, Iranians 751, Singaporeans 726 and Taiwanese 654. India, Pakistan and Indonesia rounded up the top 10 nationalities with 581, 562 and 557 participants respectively.