Economy
All of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf have significant revenues from oil and gas and, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, have small local populations. This has raised their per capita incomes above those of neighboring countries. To meet the labor shortages, they host large numbers of temporary non-citizen economic migrants from South Asia and Southeast Asia. In the past there have also been a significant number of immigrants from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Egypt.
In addition, pearl diving and the pearl industry had been the main economic activity of many of these countries, particularly Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait. The pearling industry collapsed in the 1930s after the development of cultured pearl methods by Japanese scientists.
Read more about this topic: Arab States Of The Persian Gulf
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)