What percentage of the world’s known petroleum reserves does Kuwait have?

Kuwait is a country which is quite small, but which is very rich. It has a population of a little more than a mil-lion, and it is situated at the North end of the Persian Gulf. This small desert country is one of the world’s leading oil producers, and it has approximately fifteen per cent of the world’s known petroleum reserves. Since the discovery of oil in 1938, Kuwait’s rulers have turned the country into a prosperous welfare state. It has free primary and secondary education, free health care and social services; and the Kuwaitis do not have to pay any personal income tax for those services. The rate of literacy is high and constantly growing. The ’University of Kuwait was opened in 1966, but many of the Kuwaiti students still study in colleges and universities abroad, at state expense. Kuwait is, needless to point out, an Arab country, and about 99 per cent of the people who live there are Moslems. But fewer than half of these Moslems are actually citizens of Kuwait. This is because there are many Moslem immigrants living and working there. Many of these recent immigrants have come from all over the Arab world-from places like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, from Oman, and from the Sudan. Indians, Pakistanis, and Iranians live and work in ’Kuwait, too. The other one per cent of the population, in other words, the non-Moslems, are recent immigrants who were attracted by the opportunities to work for the oil companies. There are several thousand Europeans and Americans in Kuwait. Many of them are employed by the oil companies.