DOHA: Female population in Qatar dropped by 18,075 in January this year compared to December last year while the male population increased slightly by 7,227 during the period, shows the monthly statistics released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics yesterday.
Despite an increase in the number of males, the overall population fell by 10,843 during the period, due to a significant decline in female population.
Although the report for January does not cite the reasons for this decline, it could be an indication that more expatriate families left the country in the beginning of this year.
Qatar’s population dropped from 22,35,431 in December to 22,24,583 in January this year. The number of females dropped from 549,203 to 531,128 while the number of males increased from 16,86,228 to 16,93,455. Males constituted about 75 percent of the country’s population during the period.
On the other hand, the number of tourists visiting the country saw an increase in January to a total of 300,381 against 283,672 in December last year.
The number of tourists from other GCC countries dropped slightly while more tourists from all other regions including Asia, Europe, Arab region, Africa and Americas came in January.
Interestingly, the number of driving licences issued in January as well as the number of new cars registered during the month also dropped compared to the previous month.
A total of 9,398 driver’s licences were issued in January against 10,756 licences in December. Of these, 8.936 licences were issued to expatriates while the number of citizens who got new licences stood at 462.
A total of 9353 new vehicles were registered during January against 11,743 vehicles in the previous month. The number of newly registered private vehicles dropped from 7102 in December to 5442 in January.
However, traffic violations continued to grow with 151,163 cases in January against 133642 violations in December. A total of 25,698 traffic accidents- minor and major- were reported during the month leading to the death of 31 people.
The Peninsula
