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As the World Trade Organisation (WTO) prepares to elect its new Director-General, India will be making its choice based on some clear ideals of global trade facilitation and developmental issues.
Global trade and food security will be at the heart of India's choice for the new Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a post which will be vacant once current incumbent Roberto Azevêdo formally steps down on August 31. Eight candidates - from the UK, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico, Egypt, Moldova, the Republic of Korea and Saudi Arabia - have thrown their hat in the ring for the race to lead the one of the world's premier multilateral institutions, in charge of regulating international trade between nations. The new chief will take over at a particularly turbulent time in global affairs, given the havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump led America's open belligerence and China's increasing tendency to try and upend international rules of engagement.
Against this backdrop of turmoil, the successful candidate is expected to be the one whose reformist credentials resonate most with a majority. However, while the need for reform is a given, so is the need to strike a balance with the established framework of best practice. To be selected, the successful candidate will need the endorsement of all 164 WTO members as part of a consensus-based process. The system is vulnerable to vetoes, with Washington and Beijing expected to go head to head in line with their historic trade battles. India, as one of the world's fastest growing large economies which has 24 cases lodged at the WTO as a complainant and 32 as a respondent, has made it clear that its backing will go to candidates in favour of a global trade facilitation pact for services, ensuring food security in poorer nations, and committing to talks on developmental issues. The early frontrunners in the race are believed to be former World Bank economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from Nigeria and Amina Mohamed, a former Kenyan minister and an old WTO hand - with India also said to be keen to appoint an African. “The WTO is the indispensable backbone of international trade cooperation. Imagine a world without it. All economies would suffer, even the largest,” said Mohamed, in her pitch for the post. “My vision is of a WTO with purpose, where members coalesce around the capacity of trade to help foster economic growth and sustainable development,” said Okonjo-Iweala, in her statement to the WTO General Council.