page_title: Economy of Egypt
section_title: Land ownership
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Egypt / Main economic sectors / Agricultural sector / Land ownership
caption_attribution_description: English: Egyptian countryside south of Luxor, Egypt. In the background: the village of Al Bayadiyah Nederlands: Het Egyptische platteland ten zuiden van Luxor, Egypte. Op de achtergrond: het dorp Al Bayadiyah Français&#160;: Campagne égyptienne au sud de Louxor, Egypte. A l'arrière-plan: le village d'Al Bayadiyah
context_page_description: The economy of Egypt was a highly centralized economy focused on import substitution under president Gamal Abd EL-Nasser. In the 1990s, a series of International Monetary Fund arrangements, coupled with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf War coalition, helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance.
  Since 2000, the pace of structural reforms, including fiscal, monetary policies, taxation, privatisation and new business legislations, helped Egypt move towards a more market-oriented economy and prompted increased foreign investment. The reforms and policies have strengthened macroeconomic annual growth results which averaged 8% annually between 2004 and 2009 but the government largely failed to equitably share the wealth and the benefits of growth have failed to trickle down to improve economic conditions for the broader population, especially with the growing problem of unemployment and underemployment.
context_section_description: The agrarian reform law of 1952 provided that no one might hold more than 190 feddans, that is, 79.8 hectares (197 acres) (1 Egyptian feddan=0.42 hectares=1.038 acres), for farming, and that each landholder must either farm the land himself or rent it under specified conditions. Up to 95 additional feddans might be held if the owner had children, and additional land had to be sold to the government. In 1961, the upper limit of landholding was reduced to 100 feddans, and no person was allowed to lease more than 50 feddans. Compensation to the former owners was in bonds bearing a low rate of interest, redeemable within 40 years. A law enacted in 1969 reduced landholdings by one person to 50 feddans.
  By the mid-1980s, 90% of all land titles were for holdings of less than five feddans (2.1 hectares (5.2 acres)), and about 300,000 families, or 8% of the rural population, had received land under the agrarian reform program. According to a 1990 agricultural census, there were some three million small land holdings, almost 96% of which were under five feddans. As these small landholdings restricted the ability of farmers to use modern machinery and agricultural techniques that improve and take advantage of economies of scale, there have since the late 1980s been many reforms attempting to deregulate agriculture by liberalizing input and output prices and eliminating crop area controls. As a result, the gap between world and domestic prices for Egyptian agricultural commodities has been closed.
caption: Farmland in the Egyptian countryside
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