ABSTRACT

While the infitah (open door economic policy) that President Sadat introduced to Egypt in 1973–4 has been widely discussed, 1 one of its key elements—the establishment of a number of Free Zones—has attracted very little attention. This is no doubt partly due to their relative lack of success in bringing in much real foreign investment. Nevertheless, the record of the Free Zones to date does repay study insofar as it reveals some of the major economic and non-economic difficulties of the infitah policy as a whole, and the particular social, political and cultural problems thrown up by the structure of exports and imports that it has created.