WTO D-G: Okonjo-Iweala, Four Others Know Fate On Tuesday
Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance and and former Managing Director of the World Bank, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and four other contestants will know on Tuesday, October 6, if they made the final round of the race for the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
InsideBusiness.ng recalls that Okonjo-Iweala and the four other contestants had on September 18 scaled the first round of voting.
The four other contestants still in the race are Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri, Saudi Arabia’s former minister of economy and planning; Liam Fox, the UK’s former secretary of state for international trade; Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea’s trade minister, and Amina Chawahir Mohamed Jibril, Kenya’s former international trade minister.
The second phase of consultations, which began on September 24, is expected to end on Tuesday, October 6, with WTO’s announcement of the two final candidates.
The global trade body is expected to name a new leader by November 7.
During the first round of voting, the Geneva-based WTO dropped three candidates from the race for failing to secure enough support in the first of the three rounds of voting.
The dropped candidates were: Mexico’s Jesus Seade, Egypt’s Hamid Mamdouh, and Moldova’s Tudor Ulianovschi.
The top job of the WTO became vacant following the decision of the Brazilian director-general, Roberto Azevedo, to step down at the end of August, a year before his term is due to end.
The remaining contenders are all current or former ministers, a criterion and important characteristic for a future Director-General.
The campaign to lead the WTO during the most turbulent period of its 25-year existence is playing out against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, a worldwide recession, the US-China battle for trade supremacy, and the American presidential election.
The vacancy offered an opportunity for the US, the European Union, and other nations to reshape the organisation, whose mission of economic integration was under threat from protectionist policies around the globe.
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