TOP 5 - The poorest and the richest countries (GDP) in the world in 2017

Everyone knows that there are poor and rich countries in our world and sadly there are more poor countries than rich ones. In the 20 poorest countries, the daily earnings are below $4 USD. But what makes a country poor or rich?

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There are basically three factors: The institutional system, the culture and the geographical location of the country.
The measure of every country's standard of living, so the wealth of the local people is the Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. This list of the poorest and richest countries are not based upon the plain GDP per capita, but on the purchasing power parity, which takes into account the typical price level in the given country and by that it's gives more authentic picture about the people's real standard of living.

The poorest countries in the world

• Malawi

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The fifth poorest country is Malawi, which is little compared to the African average and it's lies in the south-east part of the continent. The 80% of the inhabitants of the country lives in villages and they are almost exclusively working in the agriculture and the most important export product is the tobacco. In the 2000's the country received a lot of help and financial support from various international organisations for it's development, in 2013 however such corruption scandal shocked Malawi that the IMF and several western countries were froze it's support, hitting a vast hole in the budget of the country.

• Liberia

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The fourth poorest country is Liberia, where the civil wars between 1989-1996 and between 1999-2003 were practically completely ruined the country, including the existing basic infrastructure as well. Although after this some economic boom evolved, meanwhile the illegal weapon, drug and diamond trading cause bigger and bigger problems and the strengthening of the black economy parallel with the unstable political situation. In 2014 Ebola virus disease epidemic smote Liberia, the government had to turn vast/huge amount of money to stop the epidemic. The government had to take this money away from investments and improvements.

• Democratic Republic of Congo

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Democratic Republic of Congo takes the third place of this list, which is very rich in industrial and precious metal. The worlds biggest diamond mines can be found In the central and the south-east regions of the country, however the average people don't fell anything from the fabulous richness because of the corruption and the extensive black economy and most of them still works and lives lives in agriculture from one day to another. Since it's independence in 1960, bloody wars are practically going on continuously in the country, for example civil wars or conflicts with the nearby countries. Although we still can't say that the situation of the country is peaceful because of the tribal contrast/converse/conflict, the second Congo War ended in 2002 ended the brutal armed conflicts and with this, after 2 decades decline, the economy started to get broaden again.

• Burundi

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The world's second poorest country is Burundi and in contrast with other African countries, they don't even have rich raw material sites. 40% of the economic performance comes from agriculture. According to estimates, more of the 90% of the inhabitants are working in agriculture which is an astonishing/amazing/stupendous ratio. Within the agriculture, the coffee and the tea are the most important export products, which gives approximately the 90% of the overall export. The ethnic wars ended in 2005 caused the death of hundreds of thousand people and forced even more people to leave their homes. Since then although - thanks to financial helps -, the economy of the country started growing.

• Central African Republic

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The world's poorest country is the Central African Republic. The main export product is the diamond, which simultaneously means the biggest income source for the country. In the agricultural sector which gives more than the 50% of the GDP, the cotton is the most important export product. The country is still being mauled by religion related conflicts. In 2013 Muslim rebels taken over the power/authority from the mainly in the country mainly inhabited by Christians. To respond to this, Christian Militias organized to take back the control. Currently UN (United Nations) peace-keepers are trying to stabilize the internal political situation and until they can't solve that, they can't really deal with other, more important problems. Considering the low GDP per capita, the high degree of illiteracy and the 50 years estimated lifespan, there would be plenty tasks.

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The richest countries in the world

• Brunei

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Image source: http://www.operationworld.org.

The world's fifth richest country is Brunei. Brunei have significant crude oil and natural gas reserves. The export of these products gives the 95% of the overall exports and the 65% of the overall economic output. Despite it's dependency of raw materials, the governance/leadership of the country is investing significant amount of money to move the center of the economy to other sectors by attracting foreign investments. Thanks to the welfare/well-being the citizens aren't paying personal income tax, beside this the healthcare and the education is also free.

• Singapore

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Image source: http://www.operationworld.org.

The world's fourth richest country is Singapore, which is considered as the one of the most advanced countries in the world. It's economy is strongly dependant on international trading. Mainly exporting highly added value products, electronics, medicines, financial services to the other parts of the world. Corruption is practically not an existing phenomenon. In the corruption ranking of the Transparency International, Singapore has been included all the time as one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

• Macau

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Macau takes the third place of the list. Almost everyone associates to Casinos from the Special Administrative Region of China. This is not surprising of course, because the economy of Macau practically entirely built on the gambling industry.
Just because of this, China's anti-corruption campaign in 2015 caused amazing/astonishing damages. In that year the GDP was reduced by approximately 20% and in 2016 by additional 4,7%. But it's still remained as one of the most richest areas in the world.

• Luxembourg

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Image source: http://www.operationworld.org.

The world's second richest country is Luxembourg. Most of the economical performance of the little country between Germany, France and Belgium, the 36% of the GDP is related to the financial sector. Although due to the pressure of the European Union, the country had to allow more insight into the country's tax cases and with this the country's tax optimization status is sagged a little bit, the country is still an attractive destination of the foreign investments. About 40% of the entire manpower arrived from the other side of the border, because of this, the GDP per capita is overestimating the country's really high standard of living. The unemployment rate is within the lowest in the entire EU, as well as the government debt-to-GDP ratio.

• Qatar

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Image source: http://www.operationworld.org.

By far the richest country in the world is Qatar. The origin of the fabulous resource is similar to the other Arabian countries surrounded by the Persian Gulf: The crude oil and the natural gas. These gives the 92% of the entire export and the 56% of the income of the government. To reduce the strong dependency of the raw material, the leadership of the country made huge efforts in the previous years. The processing industry, construction industry, the financial services and importance of tourism are equally grown significantly. The leaders have time to modernize the economy, at least if we start by the fact that the country have crude oil reserve for decades, at least for 25 years with the current extraction level. Qatar will organize the 2022 FIFA World Cup and until then they will design/construct/finish a lot of mega projects. Based on the prior plans, the stadiums will look amazing as well as the whole capital, Doha.

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