
Volume 12, Issue 3 (March 2025), Pages: 1-9

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Original Research Paper
The impact of economic diversification on Saudi Arabia's economic growth
Author(s):
Mashael Al Zahrani, Rozina Shaheen *
Affiliation(s):
College of Business, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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* Corresponding Author.
Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2678-4125
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2025.03.001
Abstract
Economic diversification is important for promoting sustainable development and improving living standards worldwide. This study focuses on analyzing how economic diversification affects economic growth in Saudi Arabia. The research considers various factors such as economic growth, capital stock, fuel exports, human capital, imports, the number of companies listed per million people, non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP), oil GDP, stock market capitalization, the annual growth of total exports, and export diversification over the period from 2000 to 2023. Three separate models are examined, with total GDP, oil GDP, and non-oil GDP as the dependent variables in each model, respectively. The results show that fuel exports, total exports, and capital formation positively and significantly affect all three GDP categories. In contrast, export diversification is negatively and significantly related to oil GDP but positively and significantly influences non-oil GDP. Additionally, improvements in human capital positively impact all GDP categories, with a significant effect on non-oil GDP. The study suggests that promoting export diversification and investing in human capital can enhance non-oil GDP growth while reducing dependence on oil exports is crucial for economic resilience and sustainability.
© 2025 The Authors. Published by IASE.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords
Economic growth, Export diversification, Human capital, Non-oil GDP, Capital formation
Article history
Received 1 May 2024, Received in revised form 9 December 2024, Accepted 11 February 2025
Acknowledgment
No Acknowledgment.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Citation:
Al Zahrani M and Shaheen R (2025). The impact of economic diversification on Saudi Arabia's economic growth. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 12(3): 1-9
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