ABSTRACT
The period 1952-75 has witnessed the most far-reaching transformation in Egypt's economy and society. The most notable act of 'Egyptianisation', and the one which led the series of acts that characterised the year 1956/7, was the nationalisation on 26 July 1956 of the Suez Canal Company, a French concessionary company which operated the Suez Canal. A smaller Egyptian pipeline was constructed and put into operation in the middle of 1969; its capacity is about 1.5 million tons a year. The national product would scarcely become abler to sustain the extra cost of such work-creation policy. Egypt's chronic shortage of foreign exchange can best be seen in the fact that in the twenty years 1956-75, not once were the goods and services exported able to pay for those imported. Nevertheless, enough political, socio-cultural, economic and technological change has been effected that Egypt will never be the same as in its pre-revolutionary days.
