41 countries back Moroccan candidate to WTO leadership, daily says

Some 41 countries back Morocco's candidate to the position of director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the London-Based Asharq Al-Awsat daily reported on Thursday.

The daily, which quoted a report by Swiss ambassador to WTO William Rossifer and his Brazilian peer Silso Lavir, said Hassan Abouyoub leads the three other candidates. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi comes second with 33 votes, while former trade minister Roy MacLaren of Canada and New Zealander Michael Moore got 22 and 18 votes respectively.

Abouyoub, 44, the youngest of all candidates has been appointed recently in charge of international negotiations. He is seen as having a long experience in matters of world trade organizations. Some critics see in Abouyoub the candidate of the former GATT institutions.

However, he says that he is rather the candidate of reforms, arguing that he will make the WTO action more efficient and flexible and will give more attention to north-south trade negotiations.

Sources close to WTO said it was early to speculate that WTO members will have to vote on the next director. Regulations of the world trading body require consensus Map reported.

In addition, a vote might leave the winner beholden only to the countries which supported him. If a meeting scheduled for Friday fails again to choose a new chief, nations will consider holding a vote next month, as suggested by Egypt and Pakistan.

The WTO is supposed to replace by April at the latest its first director Renato Ruggiero of Italy who announced he is not running for another term.