diff --git a/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common/src/opentelemetry/exporter/otlp/proto/common/_internal/metrics_encoder/__init__.py b/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common/src/opentelemetry/exporter/otlp/proto/common/_internal/metrics_encoder/__init__.py
index eb2a1147842..675f4db97dd 100644
--- a/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common/src/opentelemetry/exporter/otlp/proto/common/_internal/metrics_encoder/__init__.py
+++ b/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common/src/opentelemetry/exporter/otlp/proto/common/_internal/metrics_encoder/__init__.py
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 import logging
 
+# This kind of import is needed to avoid Sphinx errors.
+import opentelemetry.sdk.metrics._internal
 from opentelemetry.sdk.metrics.export import (
     MetricExporter,
 )