Saudi Arabia ranked world’s third happiest country

Riyadh, (IINA) - Saudi Arabia has been ranked as the world’s third happiest nation and ninth regarding economic optimism. The Kingdom is also ranked sixth concerning population’s overall optimism for 2016. The ranking was based on a poll conducted by Gallup International for Independent Research, Arab News reported.
According to the poll, the happiest country in the world is Colombia, while the unhappiest country is Iraq. Bangladesh, China, Nigeria, Fiji and Morocco have the most overall optimism while Italy is the least hopeful. The findings are from a new study conducted by WIN/Gallup International Association that interviewed people from 68 countries.
According to the Happiness International Index based on the poll findings, Colombia is the happiest country at 85 percent, Fiji came second at 82 percent, Saudi Arabia third at 82 percent, Azerbaijan fourth at 81 percent and Vietnam fifth at 80 percent.
As for the unhappiest nations, Iraq came first with 12 percent in the index, Tunisia came second, Greece third, Afghanistan fourth and Palestine came in fifth.
The economic optimism index put Nigeria first at 61 percent, Bangladesh at 60 percent, China in third place at 53 percent, Vietnam at 53 percent, Pakistan at 50 percent, India at 44 percent, Morocco at 44 percent, Fiji at 39 percent and Saudi Arabia in ninth place at 32 percent, and Argentina in 10th place.
The countries least economically hopeful for this year were Greece at 65 percent, Austria at 49 percent, Italy at 47 percent and Hong Kong at 45 percent, Germany came ninth at 37 percent.
In the hope for 2016 index, Bangladesh came at the forefront with 74 percent, China came second with 70 percent, Nigeria third at 68 percent, Morocco fifth at 57 percent, Saudi Arabia at sixth with 56 percent and Pakistan came 10th with 42 percent.
The countries with least expectations and hopes for 2016 were Italy, which topped the minus net score with -37 percent, Iraq was second at -35 percent, Palestine fourth at -27 percent while Lebanon came sixth at -20 percent, Tunisia 12 percent, followed by Afghanistan with 11 percent.
The Gallup research revealed 66 percent of respondents around the world feel joy and happiness about their lives in 2015, 23 percent of the respondents said their feelings crossed between happiness and not while 10 percent indicated dissatisfaction with life. The number of people happy in 2015 went down by 4 percent from the previous year, which amounted to 70 percent.
The poll found that 45 percent of the world population is optimistic about the global economic outlook for the current year, the pessimists accounted for 22 percent while 28 percent claimed that the economy will maintain the same pace.
The overall outlook for the current year was optimistic at 54 percent while over 16 percent said they were pessimistic about this year.
About 65,000 people from 68 countries around the world were questioned in this poll.
Jean-Marc Leger, president of Gallup International Association, said: “2015 has been a tumultuous year for many across the globe, despite that the world remains largely a happy place. 45 percent of the world is optimistic regarding the economic outlook for 2016, up by 3 percent compared to last year”.
AG/IINA

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