Abstract:
Ethiopia has applied to join WTO a little less than two decades ago and the accession
process is still going on, which requires her to undergo considerable changes be it legal or
economic so that the market liberalization would be materialized. However, instead of
showing a progress towards financial liberalization thereby conveying a message to the
concerned that she is serious about the accession, the country has uncharacteristically closed
the room for financial liberalization in her newly enacted legislations. In this research the
impacts of the newly enacted investment law and regulation on the accession process of
Ethiopia to world trade organization and trade negotiation with WTO member states will be
assessed in line with the lately acceded countries sharing relatively similar economic status
with Ethiopia. The research methodology employed herein is through the reference of
relevant materials such as books, laws, articles, websites and journals as primary sources
and critically analysing Ethiopian investment laws by comparing the practices of certain
least developed countries that have acceded to WTO lately as secondary sources. The
reforms Ethiopia needs to undergo in the financial laws and policies to finalize the accession
process to WTO and the mechanisms of curbing the potential challenges of such reforms by
raising some compelling alternative solutions will also be dealt with in this research. By
doing so, the research tries to awaken the stakeholders and shows them what they need to do
in terms of amending the relevant laws and policies to progressively liberalize the financial
sectors to accelerate Ethiopia’s accession to WTO.
