Infitah

Infitah (Arabic: انفتاح‎‎ Infitāḥ, IPA: [enfeˈtæːħ] "openness") was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's policy of "opening the door" to private investment in Egypt in the years following the 1973 October War (Yom Kippur War) with Israel. Infitah was accompanied by a break with longtime ally and aid-giver the USSR — which was replaced by the United States — and by a peace process with Israel symbolized by Sadat's dramatic flight to Jerusalem in 1977. Infitah ended the domination of Egypt's economy by the public sector and encouraged both domestic and foreign investment in the private sector. The Egyptian Army's cross through the Suez canal in the October 1973/Yom Kippur War, which most Egyptians considered a strategic victory, gave Sadat the prestige to initiate a major reversal of Gamal Abdel Nasser's policies.

Under President Nasser, proponents of statism and a command economy with limited private investment, dominated the political scene. However, by the 1970s, critics believed Egypt's economy, with its large public sector, had evolved into a "Soviet-style system" of "inefficiency, suffocating bureaucracy, and waste." Sadat also wanted to turn Egypt away from its focus on war with Israel and devotion of resources to a large military establishment. He believed capitalist economic policies would build a substantial private sector, and alliance with the United States and the West would lead to prosperity (rakhaa) and eventually democratic pluralism. Infitah was not only ideologically but also politically motivated: by aligning himself with the capitalist West, and the rich and powerful members of Egyptian society, Sadat differentiated himself from his predecessor Nasser while at the same time securing his position in power.

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