Both are helping to improve Ireland's competitiveness, a vital gain for a small open economy.

ECONOMIST: The Irish economy

With a small, open economy, it cannot maintain an overvalued exchange rate and pour in stimulus spending without seeing much of the money leak away into trade deficits.

ECONOMIST: Worries about renewed overheating

Kuwait has a geographically small, but wealthy, relatively open economy with crude oil reserves of about 104 billion barrels - about 7% of world reserves.

FORBES: Kuwait