WTO head against saving job for developing world
Source: Agencies |
October 15, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WORLD Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy has said that there is no system of rotating his job between countries and regions and his successor should be picked on the basis of competence alone.
Lamy, leaving the WTO after two terms in August 2014, said it was up to the group's member countries to decide on the criteria for selecting the new WTO chief who will oversee unfinished negotiations over trade liberalization.
Emerging market countries want to see one of their own in charge of the trading club after the top jobs at the IMF and the World Bank went to a European and an American following a decades-old tradition criticized as being out of line with the new world order.
Lamy said the selection procedure at the WTO is different.
"I don't think this is a geographic rotation system," Lamy said on the sidelines of the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Tokyo.
"There is nothing in the rules of the WTO that say that if somebody came from this country, then the next one should come from this country. I think what really matters is that it's not a diplomatic game. It's a headhunting game."
Formal nominations are not due until December.
Two candidates have declared their interest: Ghana's former Trade Minister Alan Kyerematen and New Zealand's current Trade Minister Tim Groser. On Lamy's watch at the WTO, he has seen the stalling of decade-long talks on trade liberalization known as the Doha Round. But he said he saw promising signs that some progress was possible.
"I think there is a bit more momentum. And it took a bit of time for the members to realize that the big deal was not available in a short time and to realize that, if that was the situation, they nevertheless had to try and move trade opening forward," he said.
"Especially in a situation where we know that opening more trade is a low-cost solution to stimulating growth. So there is also a sort of crisis exit component in this, let's say, new attitude."
Lamy, leaving the WTO after two terms in August 2014, said it was up to the group's member countries to decide on the criteria for selecting the new WTO chief who will oversee unfinished negotiations over trade liberalization.
Emerging market countries want to see one of their own in charge of the trading club after the top jobs at the IMF and the World Bank went to a European and an American following a decades-old tradition criticized as being out of line with the new world order.
Lamy said the selection procedure at the WTO is different.
"I don't think this is a geographic rotation system," Lamy said on the sidelines of the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Tokyo.
"There is nothing in the rules of the WTO that say that if somebody came from this country, then the next one should come from this country. I think what really matters is that it's not a diplomatic game. It's a headhunting game."
Formal nominations are not due until December.
Two candidates have declared their interest: Ghana's former Trade Minister Alan Kyerematen and New Zealand's current Trade Minister Tim Groser. On Lamy's watch at the WTO, he has seen the stalling of decade-long talks on trade liberalization known as the Doha Round. But he said he saw promising signs that some progress was possible.
"I think there is a bit more momentum. And it took a bit of time for the members to realize that the big deal was not available in a short time and to realize that, if that was the situation, they nevertheless had to try and move trade opening forward," he said.
"Especially in a situation where we know that opening more trade is a low-cost solution to stimulating growth. So there is also a sort of crisis exit component in this, let's say, new attitude."
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