Various WTO Members Call for Earlier Director-General Selection Process

Fifty-eight World Trade Organization member nations at a July 22 WTO General Council meeting supported an African Group proposal to get an early start to the director-general selection process. The proposal also asks sitting D-G Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to "make herself available to serve a second term," the WTO said. General Council Chair Petter Olberg of Norway said he heard "unanimous, broad and strong support, both for the current D-G to make herself available and to run again, and for the process to be started as soon as possible."

Also during the meeting, 43 member states backed Brazil's proposal to establish a "work programmer" for "achieving tangible progress and balanced outcomes" in agriculture talks by the 14th Ministerial Conference.

In addition, Chile presented a proposal on formally incorporating the investment facilitation for development agreement into the WTO Annex 4 agreement. The trade body said "[m]any members spoke" favorably about the deal, though "three members said that they were not in a position to agree to the proposal."

The General Council adopted a deal meant to simplify the "introduction of Harmonized System (HS) nomenclature changes into members' WTO schedules by making better use of the Consolidated Tariff Schedule (CTS) database."