ABSTRACT
If western-world development is taken as the model, growth of the service sector in the developing world would be expected to follow behind major expansions of the industrial or manufacturing base. In reality, of course, service growth has occurred ahead of or alongside industrial growth. In sub-Saharan Africa in 1984, whereas agriculture contributed 39 per cent of GDP, services contributed 43 per cent but industry a mere 18 per cent. In India, the corresponding figures for 1984 were 35 per cent agriculture, 27 per cent industry, and 38 per cent services. In China, though, the proportions in 1984 were 36 per cent for agriculture, 44 per cent for industry, and only 20 per cent for services. The Chinese pattern is one that is common for centrally planned economies where the 'consumer environment' is constricted in its growth by the economic apparatus of the state and where industrial expansion is a keystone of the MarxistLeninist order. Even in the 'free' developing world, though, industrial growth has shown as much dynamism as growth in services. Among the world's low-income economies, for instance, industrial growth between 1965 and 1973 and between 1973 and 1984 averaged 8. 9 per cent and 7.4 per cent respectively. The parallel rates for services were only 6.8 per cent and 5.0 per cent. Among the world's middle-income economies, the manufacturing sector recorded the highest rates of growth of any over the two periods 1965-73 and 197384 (9.2 per cent and 5.5 per cent). What this reflects of course, is the superficial nature of much service-sector activity in the developing world, allied only to domestic demand and often pre-industrial in its service type.
