5 Fastest Growing Developing Countries in 2020

1. Nauru

Average real growth rate of the country over the past decade (2011 – 2020): 8.77%

Topping the list of the 5 fastest growing developing countries in the world is a country I definitely did not expect to see in Nauru. Nauru is a small island country in the Central Pacific. It is also one of only two countries in the world to have an average real GDP growth rate of more than 8%. It also has the second smallest population in the entire world, after the Vatican City, with just 10,670 residents. For comparison’s sake, my city has more than 20 million residents and my country has more than 220 million people.

Nauru has actually experienced a significantly high economy back in the 1970s when its GDP per capita was $50,000 which was the second highest in the world at the time after just Saudi Arabia. However, this economy was dependent on the mining of phosphate, which started to decline in the 1980s and the economy wasn’t diverse enough to absorb the impact of the same. While there are no personal taxes in the country, there is high unemployment at 23% while the people who are employed mostly work for the government with 95% of the employed population being employed by the government.

See also: 11 countries with the highest standard of living in 2017 and 10 countries that have the happiest students in the OECD