Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
Tamrat G. Giorgis
1 April 2008
A high level delegation of 240 under the Minister of Trade and Industry, Girma Birru, decided to postpone a crucial meeting scheduled for this week in Geneva, Switzerland, owing to the unavailability of a chairman of the working party at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Ethiopian senior trade negotiators such as Neway Gebreab, senior economic advisor to the Prime Minister, Teklewold Atnafu, governor of the central bank, Mekonnen Manyazewal, and Ahmed Tusa, state ministers for Finance and Economic Development, and Trade and Industry, respectively, were meant to meet members of WTO's working party on Friday, April 4, 2008. It was a meeting long anticipated from the time that Ethiopia applied to become a member of the 151 global trading club in January 2003. It has remained an observer at the WTO ever since the organization was formed in 1995.
Ethiopia's bid to join the WTO as a voting member is not an easy ride. It has to negotiate its way in and fulfil several requirements by member countries, including neighbours such as Djibouti and Kenya, if not powerful countries such as the United States and blocs as in the European Union (EU).
WTO's General Council formed a working party in February 2003, chaired by Neil McMillan, from the UK, in order to review Ethiopia's application for membership. It began with the latter's submission of a document a.k.a memorandum of foreign trade regime - listing all its laws related to trade - in January 2007. Member countries having an interest in trading with Ethiopia send questions as was the case with the United States and Canada; their inquiries, focused on telecom and financial sector liberalization, was responded to by the Ethiopian negotiators.
The following step, meetings with the working party composed of trade negotiators with interested member countries, would have taken place this week for the first time, if it was not for the absence of Mr. McMillan. He had delegated his deputy instead, a reason attributed to Ethiopia's trade negotiators' decision to postpone the meeting, according to reliable sources.
"We'll be having the working party meeting someday before this [Ethiopian] fiscal year comes to an end," Minister Girma, who confirmed the cancellation of the meeting, told Fortune.
Meeting WTO's working party is barely the beginning of the accession process. There will be additional questions from interested members and replies by Ethiopia's trade negotiators on agriculture, services, intellectual properties and legislative action plans before both parties enter the most difficult phase - negotiations on market access.
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