On Law and the Transition to Market: The Case of Egypt
On the eve of independence from European colonialism, Egypt, like most other developing countries, undertook the project of de-linking itself from colonial economy through initiating domestic industrialization. The economic project known as Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) was designed to liberate Egypt from raw commodity production, agricultural and mineral, servicing its previous colonial master Great Britain. The engine of development would be an expanding public sector with nationalization and socialism as leitmotif. In re-orienting the economy towards industrial production, it was hoped that the terms of trade with the international economy for Egypt would significantly improve, leading thereby to an improvement in the living standards of its population.