Exclusive|Election schedule released! Candidate for Director-General of WTO to start "Knockout"
Can the World Trade Organization (WTO) do the work that was done in the past 9 months in 3 months? Looking for the next WTO Director-General?
At present, eight candidates from Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, Moldova, South Korea, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom announced their participation in the new WTO Director-General.
In recent weeks, the Chairman of the WTO’s General Council and New Zealand’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organization, David Walker, have been negotiating with WTO members on election procedures and time limits.
Under normal circumstances, the process for a candidate to show himself to WTO members takes about three months. However, after Walker discussed with WTO members, all parties have reached a consensus that the "election" phase will be greatly shortened and will end on September 7.
The eight candidates will present their views on relevant issues at the WTO General Council special meeting on July 15-17, Geneva time, and answer questions from WTO members. The first financial reporter exclusively got their self-introduction and the schedule of the press conference after the conference.
Competing for employment: one and a half hours per person
At present, the eight candidates for the new WTO Director-General's election include Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Seyard, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Oconcho-Iweala, Egyptian legal expert Hamid Mamdou, and former Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs Tudor Ulyanovsky, Minister of Trade and Economic Relations of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea Yu Mingxi, Minister of Sports and Culture of Kenya Amina Muhammad, former Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Tuvejeri, and Former British Minister of International Trade Fox.
It is worth noting that in addition to the candidates submitted by Egypt, the other seven candidates are not only "veterans" in the trade field, but also held ministerial posts in their own countries.
According to the First Financial Reporter, the WTO’s new director-general’s campaign statement will be held in three days, and each candidate plans to hold a separate press conference after the one-and-a-half hour “competition” session.
Among them, the 15th is the campaign time of Saiyad, Oconcho-Iveala and Mamdu, the 16th is arranged by Ulyanovsky, Yu Mingxi and Amina Mohammed, the 17th is Tuvejerry and Fox.
Of these eight candidates, 73-year-old Mexican Seyade is the oldest, while Moldova’s Ulyanovsky is the youngest, now 37 years old.
In addition, it can also be seen that although there are no WTO rules of rotation as director-general by region, this time African countries have great expectations for being able to "take" the post of director-general. Director-General of WTO. There are three candidates from Africa. Among them, Aminna Mohammed from Kenya was the Permanent Representative of Kenya to the WTO, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Kenya. Chairman of the organization ministerial meeting. She was elected Director-General of the WTO in 2012.
Oconcho Iveala, who is also from Africa and will compete with Amina Muhammad, is also an internationally renowned economist who served as Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance, as well as the Executive Vice President of the World Bank . Oconcho-Iveala currently serves as the chairman of the board of the Global Vaccination Alliance.
The elimination phase will not exceed two months
According to WTO rules, if the new director-general is still unavailable by August 31st, the general council must appoint a current deputy director-general as acting director-general until the new director-general is appointed. At present, according to the schedule given by Walker, the election phase will end on September 7, and then WTO members will start consultations from that day, and narrow down the scope of candidates by the final elimination method and make a final decision.
Specifically, Walker will work with the chair of the dispute settlement body and the chairman of the trade policy review body to consult with all WTO members to assess their preferences and determine which candidate receives the most consensus support.
Walker has already informed WTO members that this stage will not exceed two months. He also said that he will discuss with the WTO members the specific procedural issues of this stage in the coming weeks.
The current Director General of the WTO, Azevedo, announced in May that he will officially leave office on August 31, ending his term one year earlier. The selection process for the new Director General was officially launched on June 8, and July 8 was the last day for members to submit nominations for the Director General's nomination.
Author: Feng Di Van