Brussels, 12/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The economic leap forward by Ireland over recent years has enabled it to group of richest countries in the world. Luxembourg is still at the head, and whose GDP per head of the population is double the OECD zone average (base 100). In a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2002 and published on Tuesday, the Irish are in fourth place, behind the Norwegians, Americans, but ahead of the Swiss. Since the OECD evaluation for 1999 and figures for 2002, Ireland has gone from an indicator of 114 to 129. Following these high income countries (indicators higher than 120), follows a group of mid-income countries: Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Iceland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Finland, France, Japan, Germany and Italy. These countries have a per inhabitant of the population GDP based on the basis of equality of purchasing power as an average' of the OECE zone and n the average of the EU 15 (105). Spain, Israel, New Zealand, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, South Korea, Malta, Czech Republic and Hungary present indicators for middle-to low incomes (between 50 and 99). At the bottom of the classification of low income countries (less than 50) are Slovakia, Estonia, Poland, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Mexico, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.