These growth projections put Qatar in position as the leading country for growth this year. The most conservative estimates put Qatar’s 2009 growth at 5%, which still impresses in a year when the EIU is predicting the global economy will shrink by 0.9%. This is no flash in the pan. Qatar has been one of the leading economic performers in recent years, with GDP growing at an incredible average of 15% since 2000.

Qatar has gone from being poorest nation in the Gulf, a nation of pearl fishermen, at the turn of the 20th century to a country, which, according to the IMF, now has a GDP of US$86,669 per head; the highest GDP per capita in the world. In the 1940s, oil reserves were discovered and then came the real golden egg; the North Field, which is the largest non-associated gas field in the world. In 2002 the estimated size of North Field was revised and more than doubled to 900 trillion cubic feet.

Until 1995 the country lived off these hydrocarbon reserves, but that year Crown Prince Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani deposed his father to become emir and ushered in various political and economic reforms. Oil extraction was increased in Qatar’s oilfelds and agreements signed...

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