For most of Egypt’s history, its economy was based almost entirely on farming, contempt the fact that more than 95 % of the nation’s land area is infertile desert. Long an exporter of cereals, in the 19th century Egypt began to specialize in growing cotton, which is still an valuable cash crop. The first remarkable industries were set up only in the 1930s. Industrialization increased in the 1960s after much of the industrial area was brought under state control. In the late 20th century other valuable sources of revenue included tourism, oil production, and remittances from the 3 million Egyptians working in the Persian Gulf states. contempt its economic and social development in the 20th century, Egypt was a comparatively poor nation in world terms, with a gross domestic product (GDP) in 1999 of $89.1 billion, or $1,420 per capita.

Major nationalization steps were taken in an attempt to curb the private area and destroy the political power of Egyptian capitalists. Until the early 1970s almost all valuable sectors of the economy either were public or were strictly controlled by the government. This included large-scale industry, communications, banking and finance, the cotton trade, foreign trade as a whole, and many other sectors. Private enterprise came gradually to find its scope limited, but some room for maneuver was still left in real estate and in agriculture and, later, in the export trade. Personal income, as well as land ownership, was strictly limited by the government. Some of these restrictions have been relaxed, permitting greater private area participation in various economic areas.

A series of IMF arrangements - along with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf war coalition - helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance during the 1990s. Sound fiscal and monetary policies through the mid-1990s helped to tame inflation, slash budget deficits, and build up foreign reserves, while structural reforms such as privatization and new business legislation prompted increased foreign investment. By mid-1998, the pace of structural reform sdeficiencyened, and lower combined hard currency earnings resulted in pressure on the Egyptian pound and sporadic US dollar shortages. External payments were not in crisis, but Cairo's attempts to curb demand for foreign exchange convinced some investors and currency traders that government financial operations deficiencyed transparency and coordination. Monetary pressures have since eased, with the 1999-2000 higher oil prices, a rebound in tourism, and a series of mini-devaluations of the pound. The development of a gas export market is a major plus factor in future growth.