WTO DELAYS DECISION ON ITS NEW DIRECTOR-GENERAL

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has postponed the decision about who is to become its new head, the organization announced, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

The meeting of the General Council, in which one of the two remaining candidates was to be selected, has been postponed until further notice, it said. 

New Zealand's WTO ambassador and council president David Walker cited "the health situation and current events" as reasons for the delay.  WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo had resigned from his post prematurely at the end of August for family reasons after seven years at the head of the trade body. 

Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is also supported by the EU, has emerged as the leading candidate to succeed Azevedo. Washington, however, is pushing for South Korean Yoo Myung Hee. The organization that oversees the rules for free world trade is facing its deepest crisis since it was founded in 1995. Differences are growing between the major trading blocks, the United States, China and the EU, and between industrialized and developing countries. The US is also blocking the central mechanism for settling trade disputes.