The
four pillars of the Egyptian economy are oil and gas, Suez Canal
revenues, remittances from Egyptians working abroad and tourism.
The resources are vast, but the ever-increasing population eats
them all up. Egypt had been a feudalist economy for a very long
time and prior to the revolution of 1952, its economy was based
primarily on farming, with very little industry.
The 1960’s saw an increase in industrialization with the
construction of the Aswan High Dam. Under Gamal Abd-El Nasser's
socialist regime, the majority of large industries were
nationalized. In the 1970's President Anwar El-Sadat introduce
his "Open Door Policy" which encouraged a free market as well as
trade with Europe and the United States.
This gradual economic reform has been continued by President
Hosni Mubarak and the 1990's have witnessed a high degree of
privatization, in an effort to diminish Nasser's public-sector
and introduce a new flourishing private-sector with its own new
stock exchange in down town. The Egyptian currency is the pound.
It comes in half-pound notes, one-pound notes, five-pound notes,
ten-pound notes, twenty-pound notes, fifty-pound notes and one
hundred-pound notes. |