Qatar

Qatar: steady but modest growth, 1980–2025

Vast natural-gas reserves, developed intensively from the 1990s as the world's leading LNG exporter for a time, gave Qatar one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world despite a small population. Between 1980 and 2025, Qatar's GDP per capita grew from $28,407 to $72,525 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 2.1% — steady but modest growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 5.7% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 7.4 points, reflecting considerable volatility and periodic crises. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 24.5% to 47.0% of GDP, underscoring a shift toward a services-driven economy. On human development, life expectancy rose from 69.9 to 82.5 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 5.9% to 43.0%, while the urban population share grew from 83.0% to 99.4%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions fell from 52.79 to 47.33 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) widened from 35.1 to 35.1; the poverty headcount ratio increased from 0.0% to 0.0%.