Any state or customs territory having full autonomy in the conduct of its trade policies may become a member of (“accede to”) the WTO, but all WTO members must agree on the terms. This is done through the establishment of a working party of WTO members and through a process of negotiations. More...

   Role of the CD/WTO

1. When a country provides the WTO Secretariat with its request for accession to the WTO, our department starts collecting information about the country to decide whether to participate in its working party or not.
2. After reviewing the collected information, we start studying the Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime (MFTR) for the acceding country.
3. After reviewing the MFTR, we define the questions which will be directed to the acceding country about its trade laws, and after that, if no questions are defined, we start reviewing the questions directed by other countries and the replies prepared by the acceding country to these questions.
4. The next step is that the acceding country provides the WTO with goods and services offers, then we review these offers and we communicate with the interested parties in Egypt such as the commodity councils, the Federation of Egyptian Industries, the Egyptian exporting associations, and other interested parties to know what their interests are.
5. Then we start the negotiations with the acceding country regarding its offers in goods and services and the Egyptian counteroffers in this respect.
6. Then we review the working party report.
7. Finally, we review the Protocol of Accession of the acceding country after being accepted by the Ministerial Conference, and we keep it in our files as a reference.

You can access documents and links related to accessions through the links below:

• Aricle XII (accession) of the Marrakesh Protocol
• Accession in progress
• Link to the WTO Secretariat’s Accessions page
• Relevant Websites
• Exporters' Guid to the Agreement(in Arabic)
• Report a Trade Barrier