Assessment Of The New Ethiopian Investment Law In Light To Ethiopias Accession To The Wto The Case Of The Air Transport Sector

Air transport is regulated by the Chicago Convention, ICAO, and IATA, other regional andrninternational arrangements. It is also governed by countries’ Bilateral Air Services Agreementsrn(BASAs). The WTO, although it excludes the air transportation in general, it included some subservicesrn(MRO, the selling and marketing of air transport services and CRS) in its AATS. To clarifyrnthe exact scope of the AATS and to check-up the interest of members regarding the continuity ofrncurrent exclusion of “traffic rights and services directly related to the exercise of traffic rights”rnthe Council of Trade in Services reviewed the AATS twice: first review (2000 - 2003) and secondrnreview (2005 - present) though it is not successful yet. Ethiopia formally submitted its formalrnrequest for WTO accession in January 2003 through the accession process was stagnant for aboutrneight years until the current Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed (PhD), came to power with some changesrnto the previous investment policy and resumed the accession process in June 2019. The NewrnInvestment Law has made many changes to the air transport sector: lifting the 50 passengers’rnaircraft seating capacity in the previous investment law and made a new partial liberalization ofrnthe international air transport service and domestic air transport service, but the travel agency,rntravel ticket sales and MRO are reserved for domestic investors. To this end, the researcher hasrnassessed the new investment law considering Ethiopia's WTO accession using qualitative andrndescriptive methodology. In contrast to the AATS, the New Investment Law is as restrictive as thernprevious Ethiopian investment law though it has partly liberalized the major service of the airrntransport. Thus, the researcher concluded that the air transportation under the New InvestmentrnLaw could be a challenging issue to Ethiopia's negotiation team to the WTO. Finally, thernresearcher provided some recommendations to be taken by the Ethiopian negotiation team, by thernEthiopian legislation and the WTO.

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