By the end of the third quarter of 2020, the total area of licensed buildings reached 3.849 million square metres, compared with 5.14 million square metres during the same period of 2019, marking a 25.1 per cent drop, the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced on Wednesday.

The department added that the total number of building licences issued in the Kingdom dropped by 18.2 per cent during the January-September period when compared with the same period of 2019, reaching 15,847 licences, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The area of housing buildings totalled 3.297 million square metres in the January-September period of 2020, compared with 3.897 million square metres in the same period last year, registering a decline of 15.4 per cent, the DoS said.

The DoS stated in its report that the total area of buildings licensed for non-residential purposes showed a drop of 55.6 per cent, amounting to some 552,000 square metres in the first nine months of 2020 compared with around 1.243 million square metres in the same period last year.

Licensed buildings for housing comprised 85.7 per cent of the total area of licensed buildings, according to the department.

The central region of the Kingdom registered 64.6 per cent of the total area of licensed buildings, while the north recorded 26.5 per cent and the south witnessed only 8.9 per cent, according to the DoS.

The DoS report also revealed that the third quarter of this year ranked first in terms of the area of licensed buildings by 47.6 per cent, followed by the first quarter at 33.1 per cent and the second quarter by 19.3 per cent.

At a monthly level, data showed that the number of building permits in September reached 2,350, while the area of licensed buildings reached 691,000 square metres, compared with 785,000 square metres during the same period last year, registering a drop of 12 per cent.