Okonjo-Iweala Presents Agenda To WTO

Nigeria’s former finance minister and former managing director of the World Bank Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been speaking on her plans for the World Trade Organisation if she gets the job as leader of the WTO.

Dr. Okonjo Iweala on Wednesday held a press conference and told newsmen that if she is elected Director-General of the WTO, she would ensure that the United States remain in the fold of the global trade body.

Asked how she hopes to cope with the role of trade negotiation, Dr. Okonjo Iweala said her experience in the financial world will come in handy in the new role.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, a candidate for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general election, appeared before a selection committee earlier on Wednesday.

Okonjo-Iweala is one of the eight candidates contesting in the WTO election.

The first three candidates battling to become the World Trade Organization’s next leader were making their pitches on Wednesday, with one insisting the WTO was stuck in a “serious crisis”.

Eight contenders are running for the job, with each taking their turn to impress the 164 member states’s representatives at the global trade body’s headquarters in Geneva over three days until Friday.

The candidates make 15-minute presentations before facing a 75-minute grilling over their plans for shaking up the WTO.

After a series of eliminations based on consensus, starting in September, the winner will take the WTO wheel in the midst of a global economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The new leader will also have to revive stalled trade talks and sort out simmering tensions between the United States and China.
-Channels TV