Diversification Strategies, Economic Development, Oil-Depended Economy, Competitiveness

Diversification strategies adopted by oil-depended economies' played an important role in the economic development in these countries, which rely heavily on oil exports. UAE as an oil-dependency economy has the type of strategy to diversify the sources of its national income and reduce its dependence on oil to counter the instability in global oil prices. This paper seek to investigate whether the diversification strategies adopted by (UAE) is adequate to manage its economic development. The methodology employed in this study is to examine the contribution of diversified sectors based on the country's GDP especially during and after the global financial crisis (2008-2012) using statistical analysis procedure. The results confirm that investment in different sectors rather than oil would have substantially improved the performance UAE economy.