Brazilian Roberto Azevedo’s victory in World Trade Organisation’s leadership race this week is a clear sign of the clout of emerging nations. Career diplomat Azevedo has been chosen as the successor of Frenchman Pascal Lamy as director general of global commerce’s rule-setting body.
Azevedo is the first official from the BRICS group of emerging economies to take the job and developing countries expect his election could help bring about a new world economic order.
He is seen as having the potential to revive stalled World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks which aim to harness global commerce to give a boost to developing countries.
The WTO does not hold elections, but picks its chief by consensus. The head of its ruling General Council, Pakistan’s trade ambassador Shahid Bashir, had spent weeks along with his counterparts from Canada and Sweden gauging countries’ views on who was likely to muster the most support.
Lamy, a former trade chief of the European Union, steps down on September 1 after two four-year terms at the helm.
Azevedo will face the tough task of trying to breath life into the WTO’s stalled “Doha Round” of trade liberalisation talks, launched in 2001.
Given that the WTO is a “one-country-one-vote” institution, Western supporters figure that a deal endorsed by Brazil will spark the backing of BRICS and other emerging market and of developing countries, according to analysts.
Brazil now must press the West to make sure that the first tact in any new round of trade talks eliminates distortionary policies in the industrialised world, like agricultural subsidies.
Azevedo has already said that he is convinced he has the mettle to reboot the WTO.
“The multilateral trading system is weakened by a complete paralysis in the negotiations,” he has been quoted as saying. “It’s about making the system respond to the realities of today’s world... The only way to do this is to promote trade and trade liberalisation as an important component of development policies,” he feels. “We’re not going to do that unless we unclog the system,” he insists, adding that a “modulation of the ambition” is needed to allow progress.
The 55-year-old Azevedo has been Brazil’s WTO ambassador since 2008, making him well placed to navigate the system to try to clear the Doha logjam at a crunch summit in Bali in December.
The Doha Round, launched at a summit in Qatar in 2001, aims to open markets and remove trade barriers such as subsidies, excessive taxes and regulations, in order to harness international commerce to develop poorer economies. But the concessions needed have sparked clashes notably between China, the EU, India and the US.