There has been a steep increase in the number of vehicle registrations and driving licences issued in Qatar in December last year compared to the previous month, according to figures released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics yesterday
Both the number of new driving licences and vehicles saw an increase of more than 15% in December compared to November.
While there was an increase of 23.6% in the number of new licences given to nationals, the rise among expatriates was 15.1%. While a total of 9,306 licences were issued in November, the figure shot up to 10,756 in December.
November saw 501 Qataris and 8,805 expatriates receiving driving licences. The numbers went up to 619 and 10,137 respectively in December.
Similarly, there was an increase in vehicle registration in December compared to November. While there were 11,743 registrations in December there were only 10,212 registrations in November. In December more than 7,500 private vehicles and more than 3,000 public vehicles were registered.
There was a 15% rise in the number of passenger arrivals at Hamad International Airport (HIA) in December compared to the previous month, according to the ministry. The rise in departures was close to 23%.
A total of 3,980 violations were recorded at the country’s municipalities in December. Among them, 1,181 pertained to cleaning complaints and 1,160 to food-related issues.
There was a fall of 16.3% in the generation of electricity and a 2.2% fall in water in December compared to the previous month.
There was a slight slump of 0.3% in the consumer price index (CPI) of December in comparison with November. While the CPI amounted to 118.6 points in December, in the previous month it was 119.
There was a 11.2% fall in the value of shares traded in December compared to November .
According to the figures released by the ministry, Japan was the topmost destination for Qatari exports. Japan imported goods worth QR8.7bn from Qatar. South Korea (QR6.9bn) and India (QR4.4bn) came second and third.
As far as imports were concerned, the US topped with QR1.3bn. China (QR1.2bn) and Germany (QR834mn) were second and third.
Meanwhile, the country’s population has fallen for the second successive month as per the records released by the ministry.
Compared to the figures on December 31, there was a fall of almost 11,000 in the latest count.
While on December 31, there were 2,235,431 people in the country, in the figures released yesterday the total population fell to 2,224,583.
It is interesting to note there is a marginal rise of over 7,000 in the number of males this month compared to the last month’s figures. While there were 1,686,228 men on December 31, the figure has shot up to 1,693,455 now. The total population of December was 2,235,431, which was lower than the previous month’s total of 2,269,672.
The number of women fell by 18,000 now compared to December 31 figures. There were 549,203 females in the country at the end of 2014. As per the latest figures, there are only 531,128 females now. It is presumed that a number of Qatari families are apparently away from the country owing to the spring vacation for schools. That would effectively mean the ongoing trend of the migration of the expatriate workforce to the country continued even in January as is understood from the latest number of males.
The country’s all-time highest population was recorded on November 30, when there were 2,269,672 people in Qatar, according to the ministry’s statistics. While there were 1,697,727 males, there were 571,945 females on that date.
The total population, as per the ministry statistics, contained only those who are within the country and not those who are residents, but are outside the country on the last day of every month.
However, it is expected that the population will shoot up to all-time high in the next two months, as was seen in the months of February and March in the previous years.

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