THE ROLE OF BLUE ECONOMY IN ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION: OMANI ECONOMY CASE STUDY FOR THE PERIOD (1990-2022)

Abstract

This article discusses the contribution of blue economic activity to economic diversification in the Omani economy from 1990 to 2022. There are many economic programs that have been criticized for diversifying their sources of production, use, public income and exports to lessen their reliance on one or few agricultural commodities and raw materials. Activating the role of blue economic activity is one of these policies that depend on the amount of contribution of blue economic activity to the economy and the extent of its development, which plays an important role in economic diversification in coastal states and small islands. The Autocorrelation Distributed Regression (ARDL) model was used to measure the contribution of blue economic activity to GDP growth. It was concluded based on short-term criteria that the independent variables, the proportion of GDP that comes from fish production, the proportion of GDP that comes from non-oil exports, and the proportion of public revenues that come from agriculture, forestry and fishing, there are significant effect on GDP growth. As for the long-term criteria, they indicate that macroeconomic factors have no effect on GDP growth in the long run.