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What country has the most unused potential?

What about the country that has:
  • The world’s largest reserves of zinc
  • The world’s 2nd largest reserves of copper
  • The world’s 9th largest reserves of iron ores
  • The world’s 2nd largest reserves of natural gas
  • The worlds 4th largest reserves of oil
  • The world’s 2nd largest petroleum company
  • The world’s fastest scientific growth, more than 11x the world’s average
  • The world’s 5th highest university students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Have you guessed it yet?
That country is no other than Iran.
Iran is, in my opinion, the country with the highest unused potential, and I will explain why:
Yes, Iran has some of the world’s largest reserves of minerals, but its mining infrastructure is lacking, and Iran has very little resources to fund or invest in its mining industry, and because of the sanctions foreign investment is not an option.
Yes, Iran has the world’s largest combined oil and natural gas reserves, but it’s also lacking investments in its oil and gas sector, that needs to be developed further to unleash its full potential. 40 years ago, Iran used to produce almost 10 million barrels of oil daily, but now the number has been lowered to a mere 4 million, because of an aging oil infrastructure, that needs to be modernized and bad politics.
Yes, Iranian student's doing extremely well, but Iran also has the world’s largest brain drain, which means that all the smart, innovative and bright people are packing their bags to leave Iran as soon as possible.
Yes, Iran is the 4th richest country in the world based on the worth of natural resources, which is worth more than $35.000.000.000.000 (35 trillion USD).
But this is a curse in disguise.
It has made Iran lazy, hence its economy is now dependent on natural resources, instead of human capital, as Iran’s economy is oil based.
Each time new sanctions strike against Iran’s oil industry, I hope that it will force the Iranian government to realize, that we shouldn’t make our economy so dependent on our oil, but rather on our human capital.
Instead of investing immensely in the oil and gas sector, we need to focus on our educational facilities, make Iran’s education world class, which will produce the brightest minds in the world, and make it attractive for them to stay, and make Iran a country based on knowledge, rather than petroleum.
Then, we can focus on getting rich on our natural resources.
Sources:
Iran: Mining, Minerals and Fuel Resources
Ministry of Petroleum (Iran)
Iran Raises Estimates for Proven Oil, Gas Reserves
Iran set to out-produce Qatar at world's biggest gas field
Resurgent Iran to impact copper, zinc prices through 2020 | MINING.com
New Projects Boost Iran’s Copper Sector
Iran eyes ranking among top 10 copper cathode producers

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