The Times of India SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2002
Qatar is the richest Arab state PTI SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2002 DUBAI: Oil and gas rich Qatar has overtaken the United Arab Emirates to become the richest nation in the Arab world, a report on Sunday said. Qatar's per capita income was estimated at $29,000 in the year 2000, a 100 per cent increase over the figure in 1995, buoyed by sales of liquefied gas. Mega gas projects helped Qatar become the richest Arab state and official figures showed Qatar is nearly 80 times richer than Mauritania and Sudan in terms of per capita income, daily Gulf News reported. The UAE was the second wealthiest member of the 22-nation Arab League while Bahrain and Oman were surprisingly ahead of Saudi Arabia although it controls a quarter of the world's oil wealth. The figures were published in the annual Arab economic report for 2000, which presented a gloomy picture about economic and social conditions in the region. While the average daily per capita income in Qatar and the UAE stood at around $80.2 and $58.3, respectively, in 2000, it was only around $1 in Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen, and $2-3 in Djibouti and Morocco. "There is a big gap in the per capita income in the Arab world," said the report, prepared by the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund, the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries and Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development in Kuwait. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved
