In most cases mismanage-
ment by the administration had adverse consequences, namely the degradation
of the former feudal farms, which had earlier worked with considerable eco-
nomic efficiency. After the land had been redistributed among smallholders,
its extreme partitioning proved a drawback in terms of production. Moreover,
owing to the frozen land rents, a situation comparable to that in the housing
market occurred. It was not until 1992 that this problem was finally tackled
and a new land rent law passed which was enforced as from 1997.
The most serious adverse effects of Nasser’s socialist policy on the present-
day structures of Egypt’s economy are the inflation of the public sector, which
persists to this day, and the weakening of the private sector. The foreign and
Egyptian companies that were nationalized in Nasser’s time were controlled
by parastatal organizations managed in the same way as the public sector.
Owing to corruption and mismanagement they did not work efficiently.