Afghanistan will become the 164th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on July 29th of this year, 30 days after the Protocol of Accession was ratified by the Afghan Parliament. WTO members officially approved Afghanistan’s accession at the Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on December 17, 2015 and the Protocol of Accession was signed between Afghanistan’s First Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Khan Rahmani and Director-General Roberto Azevedo.
Afghanistan is the 36th government and the ninth least-developed country (LDC) to join the WTO following accession negotiations since the WTO was established in 1995. Liberia, also an LDC, will meanwhile become the 163rd WTO member on 14 July. LDCs represent a fifth of the WTO membership.
