The Effect of Export Diversification on Economic Growth of Chosen Developing Countries

Third world Countries,especially OPEC members heavily are dependent on foreign exchange incomes from petroleum export.The increase in the number of export goods and variety of them in these countries ,On the on hand,reduces the instability of export earnings & ,On the other hand, provides the basis for achieving permanent exchange earnings and economic growth.The main purpose of this article is to consider the effect of the variety of export products on economic growth in selected developing Countries(OPEC members or other non member Countries) over 2002-2017 using the Generalized Method of Moments approach(GMM.)The model estiamtion results showed that economic growth has significantly increased in OPEC non member countries,with a decrease in export concentration and Consequently,an increase in the variety of export products. Therefore, these countries can insure their economy against foreign shocks and international fluctuations with a greater variety of export products.but in OPEC member countries,the effect of export variety on economic growth was not significant,which could be due to the high concentration of exports and consequently,the lower variety of export products with a focus on petroleum in these countries. Therefore, formulating basic strategies in order to get out of the single-product economy and achieve export diversity in OPEC member countries seems to be a necessity.