Area of licensed buildings up 3.9pct in Jan-Sep of 2022

The total area of buildings licensed in the January-September period of 2022 edged up by 3.9 percent to 6.538 million square meters (sqm) against 6.292 million sqm in the same period of 2021, according to official figures.

The Department of Statistics (DoS) said Monday that the number of new building licenses issued in the first nine months of the year declined by 4.1 percent to a total of 18,938 licenses, compared with 19,742 licenses in the same period of last year.

Similarly, the area of buildings licensed for residential purposes decreased by 1.5 percent, to 5.435 million sqm, against 5.518 million sqm during the same period last year, the figures showed.

As for buildings licensed for non-residential purposes, their area jumped to about 1.103 million sqm, up by a whopping 42.5 percent, compared to about 774,000 sqm for the same period last year, according to the figures.

Buildings licensed for residential purposes accounted for 83.1 percent of the total area of certified buildings, leaving 16.9 percent for buildings used for non-residential purposes, according to the DoS.

In its geographic breakdown of the data, the department said that the Kingdom’s central region accounted for 65.5 percent of the total area of licensed buildings, followed by the northern and southern regions at 25.1 and 9.4 percent, respectively.

Source: Jordan News Agency