Doha: The demand for residential houses has remained firm in the first month of the year. The volume of deals for residential houses grew by 59 percent to QR483.5m in January this year from QR304m in January last year, according to the Qatar Monthly Statistics bulletin released yesterday.
As per the bulletin, released by the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA), deals valuing QR2.9bn were signed during January this year which is around 89 percent more than the value of deals in December last year and 30 percent more than deals signed in January 2019.
The demographic statistics revealed that the total population of Qatar increased from 2.766 million during January 2019 to 2.773 million at end of January 2020.
According to the report, 277,392 visitors came to Qatar during January 2020. Visitors from European countries emerged as the largest group of people coming to Qatar in the first month of this year. The visitors from Europe occupied 41 percent share in total tourist arrivals, making them the biggest group of tourists coming to Qatar during the month.
Visitor arrivals measure non-residents travelling to Qatar on a short-term basis for all purposes. It includes arrivals at borders under 15 different visit visa classes, including all business and leisure visa types while excluding work visas. As per the PSA, a visitor is a traveller taking a trip to a main destination outside his usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited. A visitor is classified as a tourist, if his trip includes an overnight stay.
Total 182,273 cases of traffic violations were recorded during the first month of the year, compared to 172,012 such cases in January last year, showing an increase of six percent.
Another prominent change in this issue is the increase in deposits and credit facilities for commercial banks at a monthly rate of 2.8 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively (compared to December 2019), an annual increase of 10.5 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively (compared to January 2019).
The total number of registered new vehicles during January 2020 reached 5,925 new vehicles. The figure showed an annual increase of 5.8 percent.