We have the following equation:
where x denotes the number of years after 1998.
By substituting the given information, we have that
and we need to find x. Then, by dividing both sides by 1.8208, we get
then by taking natural logarithm to both sides, we obtain
which gives
then, the number of years after 1998 is:
which means 4 years after 1998. Then, by rounding to the nearest year, the answer is 2002.