Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has made the shortlist of candidates for the next Director-General World Trade Organisation (WTO) after the international body reduced the number of candidates to five.
The Geneva-based WTO on Friday announced that the five “candidates will be moving on for members’ further consideration in the next round of consultations, which resume on 24 September.”
It explained further that the five candidates were chosen from eight others after due consultations.
“The WTO took another step towards selecting its next Director-General today (18 September) as General Council Chair David Walker of New Zealand and his two co-facilitators in the selection process disclosed which of the eight candidates had secured the broadest and deepest support from the WTO membership and should consequently advance to the next stage of the process.
“In consultations with Amb. Walker, Amb. Dacio Castillo of Honduras and Amb. Harald Aspelund of Iceland, WTO members indicated that the five candidates who should advance are Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, Yoo Myung-hee of the Republic of Korea, Amina C. Mohamed of Kenya, Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Liam Fox of the United Kingdom.”
The goal was to name a new WTO leader by November 7, 2020.
