Machines and technology were imported, often at a high cost, but gradually local industries grew up. By World War 1, textiles industries had gained a strong foothold. Today Egypt's industry covers, in a addition to the dominating textile industry, production of cement, iron and steel, chemicals, fertilizers, rubber products, refined sugar, tobacco, canned foods, cottonseed oil, small metal products, shoes and furniture. Mining has become more important in the last 20 years. Products like crude petroleum, salt, phosphate, iron and manganese are extracted.
Energy is no big problem in Egypt.
The country is self-sufficient with petroleum, and has smaller deposits of coal and natural gas. The Aswan Dam provides most of the electric power used. This source of income is slightly threatened, and could be reduced in the years to come. The northern coast receives only little rain, about 200 mm yearly, but this is still far more than further south. The oases, principally to the west of the Nile, draw their water from large underground water resources which are remnants of an ancient course of the Nile which ran further to the west.