An index aimed at measuring long-term economic and human development prospects has ranked the Gulf nation as sixth-best globally.
Qatar has been ranked sixth in a political economy index measuring the national elites’ ability to create value, implying the Gulf state’s elites are contributing more to society than extracting from it.
With a score of 62.6, Qatar leapt 12 places from 2024 to become the top-ranked nation in the Middle East, according to the Elite Quality Index (EQx), calling the improvement “a stunning elite performance by a rising star”.
Published by Switzerland-based Foundation for Value Creation Activities in partnership with the University of St. Gallen, the index measures “long-term economic and human development prospects.”
Singapore, the U.S., Switzerland, Japan and South Korea have been placed above Qatar in its latest update.
The index uses more than 149 indicators primarily across four major dimensions: economic power, economic value, political power and political value to categorise 151 countries across the globe. Five new artificial intelligence (AI)-related indicators were added in this year’s assessment.
Qatar stood out as a country with “very high quality elites”, assessing 104 available indicators, according to the report.
The Gulf nation had previously ranked 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 18th in the previous editions of the index, respectively.
“It seems that the state’s [Qatar] outsized ambition has now broken this historical pattern by advancing to #5 in the EQx2025,” the report stated. Qatar’s rise, followed by the UAE’s entry in the top 20 of the index, hints at “something interesting” happening in the Gulf, it added.
However, the report also suggested that while Qatar, along with countries like Singapore, Ireland, and Norway, maintains a strong position today, continued adaptation may be needed to meet the evolving challenges of the future.
Qatar showed varied performance across the report’s accompanying indices, ranking 59th in the NextGen Value Creation Barometer, 96th in the Global Slavery Index, and 33rd in the AI EQx Indicator Family—highlighting areas for continued progress alongside its broader development goals.
With evolving factors in value creation such as AI, the report urged for continued focus on sustainable ways of value creation.
“Prosperous countries have achieved their wealth through high Elite Quality in the past,” it stated.
“If they wish to maintain the relative success […], these countries must double
down on Sustainable Value Creation and be vigilant against the emergence
of elite business models based on extractive value transfers.”
“This means that they must engage in continual structural and statutory reforms.”
