ADDIS ABABA (Addis Fortune) – Ethiopia’s Memorandum of the Foreign Trade Regime, which took three years and 11 months to draw out and get approved by the Ethiopian government, was finally sent to the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, two weeks ago.

This 140-page document, which included the Ethiopia's trade policies, legislations, directives and proclamations with summaries accompanying each aspect covered, was sent to Geneva on December 22, 2006.

The 148-member WTO was established in January 1, 1995, in replacement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATI). In order to become a member state of this Organization, countries have to make a request to the General Council; once they receive approval for accession, the applying country has to fulfill requirements, of which the Memorandum of the Foreign Trade Regime is one of the most important, and submit the report to the Working Party, which is formed by the Council.

The Party will then take the document, translate them into the WTO languages of English, French and Spanish and provide copies to all member states, which in turn will evaluate them, raise questions on lacking factors and prepare a panel for discussion and questions.

Ethiopia received approval for accession on January 13, 2003, after remaining a WTO observer for some time. On February 10, 2003, the General Council formed a Working Party for the country, and appointed the British Ambassador to WTO, N. McMillan, as Party Chairman.

Once accession was approved, Ethiopia had to form a task force that would be in charge of preparing the Memorandum for the Working Party. Therefore, the government selected representatives from the ministries of Trade and Industry, Revenues, Finance and Economic Development, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Works and Urban Development. Moreover, it also had experts from the National Bank of Ethiopia, the Federal Customs Authority and Science and Technology Commission. The 15-member technical group was formed in February 2003. This Committee was led by the Ministerial Committee that was established in 2001 and chaired by Minister of Trade and Industry, Girma Birru.

At the time, Girma Birru told Fortune that the preparation of the document was to take one year, be submitted to the Council of Ministers who will review and approve it within another year, in which instance it would be sent to WTO. However, things did not quite go as planned; September 2004, which was the date on which the document was to have been sent to the Organization, was in fact the date the report was submitted to the Council of Ministers. After a two-year delay, the Council of Ministers finally okayed the document on November 10, 2006.

Although the document submitted to WTO was supposed to include the most recent laws and directives issued, the report only had updated data until the time it was proposed to the Council of Ministers. Therefore, the technical group was, from November 2006 to now, compiling documents from 2004 and 2005 to include in the report.

"We compiled and sent off the report via DHL in three weeks as instructed to us by the Council of Ministers," Habtamu Tadesse, head of the WTO Department under the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) told Fortune.

As Ethiopian law prohibits any foreign investors to enter the financial and telecom sectors of the country, the country's accession to WTO will receive great challenge in these aspects. In order to understand what the advantages and disadvantage of freeing this sector will entail, MoTI hired two international consultants last week. The German BKP and the American, Nathan Associations, will begin their work, as soon as the World Bank approves their contract. The Bank granted the study a 300,000 dollars loan. After the approval is received, the companies will be expected to finalize the impact assessment in three months. The consultants will be studying the impact assessment of the sectors that will also serve as responses to the enquiries placed by the WTO member countries. "As soon as the documents leave our hands, it is as if they have been submitted to the WTO," said Habtamu. "All we need to do now is wait until the Working Party organizes the questioning panel and they call us forward."

If all goes as planned by the Ethiopian government, the country will undergo all the WTO accession guidelines and will become a full-fledged member of the Organization by 2012. Others although are skeptical about the matter as they believe that unless Ethiopia opens up the financial and telecom sector for investment, the likelihood of the country becoming a member in the coming six years is very slim.