The clarion call for the World Cup has been sounded, and the eyes of the world are focused on the host country. Qatar, a country with an annual per capita income of one million, but still not a developed country, do you know why? Today, let's follow the video into Qatar, a small country in the Middle East.
Qatar, located in the southwest of Asia, the east of the Arabian Peninsula, the entire country is surrounded by the Persian Gulf on three sides, the coastline reaches 563 kilometers, only its southern part borders Saudi Arabia, and it is also relatively close to the United Arab Emirates. It can also be seen from the map that Qatar's land area is not large, only 11,521 square kilometers, a little larger than Xuzhou and smaller than Chengdu on the mainland, and the population is not worth mentioning, only 2.65 million.
It is such a country with big sesame seeds, which has hosted many large-scale events, such as the 2011 Asian Cup, the 2016 Asian Cup final, the 2019 and 2020 Club World Cups and so on. So why can Qatar hold so many major competitions, of course, it is rich and willful, and the per capita million is not blown out.
Qatar as a member of the Middle East countries, presumably many people will definitely think of oil energy, Qatar does have abundant oil resources, oil reserves of about 2.5 billion tons, but can only rank 14th in the world, and what really makes Qatar rich is not oil, but natural gas.
To the northeast of Qatar is currently the world's largest natural gas field, the Northern Gas Field, which is jointly owned by Qatar and Iran, and the Iranian side calls it the South Pars Gas Field. The entire gas field covers an area of 5,000 square kilometers, with a water depth of 15-16 meters, and reserves of an astonishing 25.63 trillion cubic meters, which also makes Qatar's natural gas reserves the third in the world. According to data released by the Qatar Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, Qatar's total exports reached 585.1 billion yuan, of which natural gas and oil accounted for about 80%, and the per capita GDP in 2021 was as high as 685.81 million US dollars, second only to Singapore in Asia.
If both countries and individuals are rich, why is Qatar not yet a developed country? Here we have to talk about the international definition standards for developed countries, there are four main criteria for determining whether a country is a developed country in the world, first, the per capita GDP exceeds 20,000 US dollars, and the total economic volume is high; Second, the industrial system is complete and developed, and the market economy system is sound; Thirteenth, science and technology are relatively developed, and the degree of internationalization is high; Fourth, the happiness index is high and the social welfare system is sound. Obviously, in the second and third points above, the Middle East oil countries do not meet, so although the Middle East oil countries are very rich, they cannot be regarded as developed countries.
The above is an introduction to the definition of standards in Qatar and developed countries, we will see you in the next issue.