The contribution of economic sectors to economic growth: The case of COMESA countries

Abstract. This research examines the contribution of the Economic Sector, such as the agriculture, industry, service and FDI to Economic Growth in COMESA countries. A balanced panel data has been used over the period 2000-2019 for 12 COMESA countriessuch as Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The ARDL resultsshowed that in the short-run all the economic sector has a positive contribution to the GDP growth. Meanwhile, in the long-term the agriculture sector and FDI do not contribute to the economic growth of those selected countries; but the service and industry sector will have a great influence on the GDP. Therefore, the error correction model was used to analyze the long-term effect of agriculture, industry, service and FDI on GDP. The results suggest that in the short run, the agricultural sector and FDI have a positive effect on growth; in addition, the service and industrial sectors have a long-standing effect on GDP growth in countries of COMESA. Finally, we conclude with some recommendations.Keywords. Economic sectors, Economic growth, ARDL, COMESA.JEL. C23, F62, N17, F43