A boat taxi in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2017.
Export growth has been shown to have a positive impact on economic growth. It increases investment in sectors where a country has a comparative advantage by facilitating the adoption of advanced technologies, increasing national production and raising the rate of economic growth.
However, there is also evidence that exports have a negative effect on economic growth, especially in countries where primary exports constitute a large share of total exports. Primary exports can be subject to excessive price fluctuations and do not offer knowledge spillovers and other externalities that some non-primary exports do. In the UAE, where primary exports mainly consist of oil, emphasis must be placed on non-oil exports to achieve sustained economic growth.
Over the period 1981–2017, the UAE experienced significant export diversification and a high rate of economic growth. In particular, export diversification is reflected in the increase of non-oil exports during the last three decades.
This project will investigate whether a further increase in the degree of export diversification will foster further economic growth in the UAE. The results of this study will contribute to the discourse on the design of future economic policies in the country and will also be instructive for other countries attempting to emulate a similar economic model.
This project forms part of the Academic Collaboration with Arab Universities Programme, funded by the Emirates Foundation.
Project Outputs
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Does Export Composition Matter for Economic Growth in the UAE? LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series 63, November 2022.
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Athanasia Stylianou Kalaitzi, Samer Kherfi, Sahel Alrousan and Marina-Selini Katsaiti, Are Non-Primary Exports the Source for Further Economic Growth in the UAE? Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, May 2022.
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Exports, Diversification and Economic Growth in the GCC States. Workshop series, LSE Middle East Centre Blog, July 2021.
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Which Exports Contribute More to Economic Growth in the UAE? LSE Middle East Centre Blog, May 2021.
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Export Composition and Economic Growth in the UAE. LSE Middle East Centre Blog, May 2020.
Research Team
Dr Athanasia Kalaitzi | Principal Investigator
Athanasia is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. Her most recent research involves examining the causality between fuel and mining exports, re-exports and economic growth in the UAE.
Dr Samer Kherfi | Co-Principal Investigator
Samer is Associate Professor of Economics at AUS. His research focuses on education and labor market outcomes in the Middle East, as well as macroeconomic forecasting.
Dr Sahel Al-Rousan| Research Partner
Sahel is Senior Economic Advisor at the Macro-Fiscal Policy Department, Ministry of Finance, UAE. He provides technical advice on fiscal policy and general macroeconomic issues.
Dr Marina-Selini Katsaiti | Research Partner
Marina-Selini is Adjunct Professor at the United Arab Emirates University and currently serves as Academic Scholar at the Agricultural University of Athens. Her research interests lie in the areas of health economics, happiness, economic growth and institutions.
Iman Al-Ali | Research Assistant
Iman is a Research Assistant on the LSE Middle East Centre project ‘Export Composition and Economic Growth in the UAE’. Her research interests include economic development, policy design, and post-conflict reconstruction in the MENA region.