Ammon News - The total area of buildings licensed in January and February of 2023 jumped by 47.2 percent to 1.496 million square meters (sqm) against 1.016 in the same period of 2022, according to official figures.

The Department of Statistics (DoS) said Thursday that the number of new building licenses issued in the first two months of the year increased by 21.3 percent to a total of 4,022 licenses, compared with 3,317 licenses in the same period of last year.

Similarly, the area of buildings licensed for residential purposes rose by 47 percent to 1.307 million sqm against 889,000 sqm during the same period last year, the figures showed.

As for buildings licensed for non-residential purposes, their area climbed to about 189,000 sqm, up by a major 48.8 percent, compared to about 127,000 sqm for the same period last year, according to the figures.

Buildings licensed for residential purposes accounted for 87.4 percent of the total area of certified buildings, leaving 12.6 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 66.7 percent of the total area of licensed buildings, followed by the northern and southern regions at 25 and 8.3 percent, respectively.