Nayrouz News Agency : The total area of licensed buildings in 2020 reached 2.016 million square metres compared with 3.196 million square metres in the same period last year, marking a 36.9 per cent drop, the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced on Monday.

The department said that the total number of building licences issued in the Kingdom dropped by 35.8 per cent, reaching 6,457 licences in the first half of this year, compared with 10,055 in the first half of last year, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The area of housing buildings amounted up to 1.736 million square metres compared with around 2.430 million square metres in the same comparison period, registering a decline of 28.6 per cent, according to the DoS.

As for buildings licensed for non-residential purposes, the DoS said that their total area reached 280,000 square metres in the first half of 2020 compared with around 766,000 square metres in the same period last year, a drop of 63.4 per cent. 

Licensed buildings for housing comprised 86.1 per cent of the total area of licensed buildings, according to the department. 

Regionwise, the centre region registered 66.7 per cent of the total area of licensed buildings, while the north recorded 26 per cent and the south witnessed only 7.3 per cent, according to the DoS.

The DoS provides data on the number of licensed buildings, their area and type of use in each governorate so as to provide planners, policy- and decision-makers with information on construction activity, Petra reported.