"Our tough policies are taking effect and this marks a significant step towards bringing net migrationdown from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament, " he said.
Estimates taken in 2000 had over-estimated Scotland's population by about 50, 000 or 1% and this could have been down to the difficult task of measuring migration of people.
Rarely since the 1980s, when China's strict controls on migration from countryside to town began to break down, has the capital appeared so determined to reverse the tide.
The group follows the migration of mackerel from the Norwegian sea, past Shetland and down the west coast of Ireland and Britain possibly as far as the Portuguese coast.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migration Watch UK, said it had to be the "right approach" to try to get immigration down by being "much more selective".