Brazil's Roberto Azevedo appointed Head of World Trade Organization

Roberto Azevedo from Brazil on 8 May 2013 was named as the head of the World Trade Organisation. His appointment to the office came up at the time when the organization is struggling to identify ways to revive the talks on freeing global commerce and to help poorer nations in development. He will take charge of his office from Pascal Lamy of France in the Geneva-based Body in September 2013.

Azevedo is the first Latin American to be appointed as the head of the WTO since it was created in 1995. The process of electing the WTO Head took a period of about six months. A total of nine people were competing for the post.

After being into the office, his journey will start with the 9th ministerial in Bali, Indonesia from 3 to 6 December 2013.

About Roberto Azevedo

• Since 2008, the 55 years old, Roberto Azevedo has been serving WTO as the Permanent Representative of Brazil to WTO and other International Economic Organisation in Geneva
• He was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs to the Foreign Minister from 1995 to 96
• He was the head of Dispute Settlement Unit from 2001 to 2005
• Director of the Department of Economic Affairs from 2005 to 2006
• Vice Minister for Economic and Technological Affairs from 2006 to 2008

About WTO

WTO was established with the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement/ Marrakesh Declaration at Marrakesh, Morrocco in 1994. WTO came up as a replacement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT was overseeing the rules of commerce since 1948. GATT covered trade in goods, whereas WTO deals with trade of inventions, designs and services too.