Ethiopia restarted its bid to join the World Trade Organization in 2019 after nearly seven years of stalled talks, chief trade negotiator Mamo Esmelealem Mihretu told The Reporter in August 2019.
The Centre William Rappard, headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, photographed on May 9, 2023. (Jérémy Toma / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
Mamo, a senior policy adviser to the prime minister, said a fourth round of working party negotiations would begin in October 2019. Negotiating parties had largely agreed on the goods offer, but the services offer had long been the hardest part, the paper reported.
He said the government had opened the telecom, logistics and power sectors to liberalization and had recently allowed foreign citizens of Ethiopian origin to form and run banks. He said accession would probably be completed in 2021.
“It’s not about tariffs elimination but the overall target we have is what makes the trade agreement essential,” Mamo said. He said an open business environment would also support closer integration in the Horn of Africa.
On the African Continental Free Trade Area, Mamo said Ethiopia had “an aggressive interest with its existing 20 percent export market share in Africa,” while trade with the continent made up only four percent of its imports. Tariff cuts would be phased in over 15 years from 2020, and goods such as imported vehicles would be exempt from the immediate zero-tariff schedule, he said.
Ethiopia’s WTO working party was set up on Feb. 10, 2003, according to the WTO. The seventh working party meeting took place on April 22 and 23, 2026, after the sixth in September 2025, and Trade and Regional Integration Minister Kassahun Gofe told members the negotiations had “reached a decisive juncture.”
Ethiopia had aimed to complete accession at the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in March 2026, but that target passed, Ethiopian Business Review reported. The trade ministry said on Sept. 23, 2026 that Ethiopia had concluded 11 of 17 bilateral market access negotiations and was preparing for an eighth working party meeting.
Sources: The Reporter Ethiopia (2019), World Trade Organization (April 2026), World Trade Organization: Ethiopia accession, Ethiopian Business Review (September 2026)