Q.Distinguish between the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy, giving one example of each.

The three sectors are distinguished by the nature of what they produce — raw material, a finished good, or a service.

The primary sector consists of activities that extract or produce output directly from nature, without transforming it into a manufactured product — agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining are typical examples; a farmer growing rice is engaged in a primary-sector activity.

The secondary sector consists of activities that take raw material (often the output of the primary sector) and convert it, through manufacturing or construction, into a finished or semi-finished physical product — a textile mill turning raw cotton into cloth is a secondary-sector activity.

The tertiary sector consists of activities that do not produce a physical good at all, but instead provide a service that supports or facilitates production, distribution or consumption — a bank lending money to a farmer or a manufacturer, or a transport company carrying the manufactured cloth to market, are tertiary-sector activities.

The key distinguishing feature across the three sectors is therefore the nature of the output: natural resource, physical manufactured good, or intangible service.