Traffic violations, accidents in Qatar drop significantly in March

QNADohaTraffic violation in Qatar saw significant decline in March when compared with the previous month and the same month in the previous year.According to the Planning and Statistics Authority data, 116,904 traffic violations were registered in March, which is a decline of 30.7 percent from February and 35.5 percent from March 2019.Traffic accidents also showed decline in that month. Altogether, 483 accidents were registered in March. This is a 21.7 percent fall month-on-month. Of the March total, 86 percent resulted in only minor injuries, while 11 percent were causes for severe injuries and 3 percent resulted in fatalities.The declines in traffic violations and accidents should be read with the fact that social distancing and other COVID-19 preventive measures have limited public movements. The figures show that the total number of registered vehicles during the month of March reached 4,294 new vehicles, registering a monthly decrease of 28.6 percent, while the annual decline compared to March 2019 was 31.2 percent.As for Demographic data, figures showed that the total population of the country increased to approximately 2.795 million in March this year, compared to approximately 2.760 million in the same month last year.With regard to issued building permits, the total number of licenses reached 637, with a monthly decrease of 4.1 percent, while the annual change reached 10.7 percent.As for the banking sector, the value of the wide money supply 2 reached about QR 617.107 billion during March, with an annual increase of 7.1 percent compared to March 2019, while the value of quasi-cash, which includes deposits of commercial banks, amounted to about QR 893.381 billion, registering an annual increase of 5.5 percent, as the total deposits at that time reached about QR 846.5 billion.