Economic Policy in Egypt: A Breakdown in Reform Resistance?

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Abstract
In the first half of the 1970s, Egypt turned away from the Soviet Union and initiated an economic open-door policy. Since then, the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank have encouraged comprehensive reforms that would make Egypt an outward-looking market-oriented capitalist economy in which the private sector plays a dominant role. While the Egyptian economy had gone in that direction between 1974 and 1990, it had fallen far short of what they were looking for. In lengthy negotiations with the IMF, Egypt had, in spite of strong pressure, remained unwilling to implement many elements in this orthodox reform package. At the same time, most observers agreed that the government's own policies were not successful: living standards declined while the foreign debt grew rapidly, undermining the country's political independence. Analysts attributed this resistance to reform in the face of foreign pressure to a mix of domestic and foreign factors.

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