ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some of the political and administrative dimensions of the open door economic policy in Egypt. It analyses the way in which this policy has developed from within the Nasirist experiment and examines the organizational framework within which this master policy is being implemented, with particular emphasis on the way in which capital available to the country is being utilized. The official presentation of the rationale for the open door policy reflects by itself the importance of these three groups of factors—the domestic, the regional and the international—as it aspires to combine Egyptian human resources with Arab money and Western know-how for the benefit of Egyptian development. Supporters of the open door policy were also inclined to belittle the possible social costs of that policy in terms of increasing income differentials and solidifying social stratification. Supporters of infitah can also point to other useful outcomes of that policy on the micro-economic level and in the field of management.
