Oil Exports and its Relation to the Trade Openness of the Libyan Economy with Other Countries: An Analytical Study for the Period 1995-2008 A.D

Abstract

The Libyan economy is characterized by most of the properties of the

developing countries’ economies. It is considered as a relatively small sized

economy and its revenue depends on a naturally depleted resource (the crude

oil) . Yet despite the fact that the development plans were aimed at achieving

high growth rates in productive economic activities aiming at creating a

production base that helps to diversify sources of revenue, and gradually

ease the dependence on the oil sector, this goal seems to be still elusive,

and the economy still depends entirely on the oil sector as a major source of

income and foreign currency.

This research aims to determine the relationship between oil exports

and the rate of the economy’s openness with the outside world. The research

reached a set of results. The most important of these results is that the

concentration of the exports of Libya on crude oil had led to the increase

of the openness of the Libyan economy to the outside world. This in turn

increases the degree of vulnerability of the Libyan economy to the external

factors which are certainly beyond the control of the Libyan economy.