At the opening ceremony of this World Cup, the mascot "Raib" caused discussion among netizens and fans.
Obviously, the design of "Raib" is inspired by the traditional Arabic clothing headscarf, which can't help but remind Chinese netizens of the joke "A piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the world".
When it comes to "this cloth", most people think of the rich people in oil-producing countries represented by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, Qatar, the host of this World Cup, has a much higher per capita wealth than the previous two.
According to the World Bank, Qatar's GDP per capita reached $89,948.60 in 2020, ranking first among Arab countries in the Middle East for a long time and regularly appearing in the top ten of global rankings.
The UAE ranked second with $69,957.60, lagging behind Qatar in terms of GDP per capita, Kuwait ($51,962.00) and Saudi Arabia ($46,762.50) in third and fourth place respectively.
While Qatar's total GDP is only 15% of Saudi Arabia's, its population is less than 9% of Saudi Arabia's. In addition to its small population base, the country of just over 3 million people has an unemployment rate of less than one percent, the lowest unemployment rate in the world, and no residents are below the poverty line.
Diplomatically, Qatar, as an important power in the Arab world, has good relations with the United States and some European countries. In order to compete for the right to speak in the region, Qatar has promoted Al Jazeera, which has won widespread attention from the people in the Middle East.
A gas giant that broke away from OPEC alone
Geographically, Qatar is located on a peninsula east of the Red Sea and south of the Persian Gulf, most of its territory is surrounded by the Persian Gulf, and only the southern border borders Saudi Arabia.
Qatar is very small, only 11,521 square kilometers, the size of the Chinese city of Tianjin, but it has energy resources that do not match the size of the country. Qatar's proven oil reserves of 2.5 billion tonnes rank thirteenth in the world, which does not seem to be bright enough; But the country's natural gas reserves of 2.47 billion cubic meters rank third in the world, after Russia and Iran.
Qatar's natural gas reserves are mainly concentrated in the Northern Gas Field, located between the country and Iran, which Iran calls the South Pars gas field. With a total storage capacity of 51 trillion cubic meters, in addition to about 50 billion barrels of condensed oil, the field is the world's largest hydrocarbon reservoir.
The North-South Pars gas field allows Qatar to maintain relations with Iran, and it is one of the few Arab countries with which Iran is on good terms. But at the same time, Qatar is committed to strengthening diplomatic relations with the United States and increasing its leverage against Saudi Arabia.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed sanctions and blockades on it. It was not until January last year that Saudi Arabia and other countries announced the resumption of full diplomatic relations with Qatar.
In 2019, Qatar abruptly announced its withdrawal from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), claiming that the country wanted to focus on developing and increasing natural gas production, which caused a big shock to OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia.
In 2021, Qatari LNG exported to 25 destinations around the world, of which about 54.2 million tons were exported to the Asian market, accounting for 67.6%, and about 16.4 million tons were exported to the European market, accounting for 20.5%.
In the first half of 2022, the total revenue of Qatar's oil and gas industry reached QAR117.6 billion (about 219.2 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 67%.
This helped Qatar achieve fiscal revenue of 150.7 billion riyals (about 280.9 billion yuan) and a fiscal surplus of 47.3 billion riyals (about 88.2 billion yuan) in the first half of this year. Qatar is one of the world's leading LNG producers and exporters, accounting for about 80% of its total exports of natural gas and oil.
However, due to limited oil and gas reserves, the country is committed to economic transformation, launching the National Vision 2030 plan. The goal is to become a sustainable country with strong international competitiveness and high living standards by 2030. The World Cup happens to be Qatar's best window of opportunity to expand its international influence.