The Role of Agriculture in the National Economy of China and India – A Long-Term Analysis

The purpose of the article is to determine the position of agriculture in the economy of India and China and verify the extent to which the downward trend in agriculture is noticeable in these countries over 25 years (1990-2015). Developing countries represent a significant group among all countries in the world. India and China are especially important in this context for they are the biggest world developing economies which have made huge progress in the field of social and economic transition since the beginning of the 90s. Based on collected material, models of regression were developed, showing dependencies between the dependent variable (GDP per capita) and significant independent variables, including the contribution of agriculture to GDP. It results, from the conducted analyses, that the greatest positive effect on GDP per capita is exerted by an influx and outflow of foreign direct investment and share of services in GDP. With progressing economic growth, a marked downward trend is also evident for the share of agriculture in the generation of GDP. Nevertheless, the rate and scale of this phenomenon varies greatly in the investigated countries. In the case of China, stable per capita GDP growth can be observed with around a 10% share of agriculture in GDP, while, in the case of India, a 20% share. This may mean that such a share of agriculture is already weakening GDP growth to a small extent, which is more dependent on this level than on other factors.