This place feels kind of like Disneyland because everything is so perfect. I've arrived in the world's richest country, at least when you look at how much it brings in compared to its population. Qatar only has a few hundred thousand citizens, but it brings in hundreds of billions of dollars every year, which means that the total value of goods and services it provides compared to its small population is huge. On average, Qatar makes the equivalent of about $130,000 per person every year. That's $20,000 more than the second highest country on the list, and about twice as much as the United States makes per person. And walking around Qatar, you'll feel like you've come to a whole new world. This country is spending more than $200 billion to host the World Cup. Some say they're burning through $500 million each week on different projects. It's spending more than the equivalent of Greece's annual GDP. Here is something you don't see very often a Maserati showroom. and luxury stores and luxury hotels are everywhere you look. So why is Qatar so rich? The answer comes down to oil, and with much of that money it generates from oil, it invests here in the country. And in its citizens. I've come to discover how its oil reserves have translated into today's ultramodern luxury shopping malls, fine dining and luxury hotels. This is a man-made island. And everywhere I look, I see like luxury restaurants, chocolate shops. It's absolutely fascinating what I see, because I see so many yachts. I see beautiful restaurants. I see luxury apartments. So to be perfectly honest, this place feels kind of like Disneyland because everything is so perfect. You don't see any garbage. The temperature's perfect. The grass is the perfect shade of green. It literally feels like I'm in Disneyland. I don't feel like I'm like outdoors in a public space. I feel like I could leave my wallet, my passport, my phone right here. And if I come back in a couple of hours, it'll probably be there. That's just the feeling I get. This literally is so funny to me. It's like, perfectly curated. Everything is perfect. You have, like, really nice everything. I would eat my food off of this This is how clean and how nice this is Even the street name signs give Disneyland vibe. But here's the thing. Qatar is a tiny country with less than 3 million residents, and only about 15% of them are actual Qatari citizens. The rest of them are people from abroad working in the oil and gas sector and many people working from nearby countries on construction projects. With so much money, it can easily afford to attract people from other countries to want to work here. See, Qatar is a high income economy backed by the world's third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves, and it's usually the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. And because Qatar has such a strong economy, it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, just 0.2%, which is virtually nothing. And the reason that is, is because if you want to live here, you'll probably need to find a job first before you can live here. Qatar has 13% of the total oil reserve supply, and almost 87% of the country's exports are petroleum. But here's the thing. The world is projected to be less reliant on oil in the upcoming decades. In fact, in the next few decades, it's estimated that we'll go from needing about 90 million barrels of oil per day to just about 24 million, which means if Qatar wants to stay so rich, it'll need to diversify its economy so it's not solely dependent on oil. And one way that it's hoping to do that is by impressing the world in hosting the World Cup making it the first Muslim and Arab country to do this. walking around so many areas here in Doha. This is a common sight. I applied and I got my ticket I'm going to catch most of the games. Wow. I am so excited So it's about 9 p.m. You see dozens of people still working I've never seen such a magnitude of workers preparing for something, all stationed in the same area, working on something, working day and night. Oil prices fluctuate a lot, which means so does Qatar's annual GDP per capita. In 2014. The per capita GDP of a Qatari citizen was about $140,000 but the following year it fell to just about $98,000. So it's spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the World Cup to attract investors and people to want to live and work here and create a whole new economy that will allow itself to stay super wealthy without worrying about demand and oil falling in the decades ahead. But if its big bet will pay off or not. Well, that will have to wait and see
