Morocco Welcomes Appointing First Woman from African Developing Country as DG of WTO

We are delighted that, for the first time, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is headed by an African woman from a developing country, said Kingdom’s Ambassador to Geneva, Omar Zniber this Monday February 15th, on the occasion of appointing Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director-General of the WTO, adding that “this is a great source of satisfaction for developing countries in general, and African countries in particular”.

He noted, in this regard, that the consensus which led to the appointment of Ms. Okonjo-Iweala can strengthen her new mission and provide the necessary support to give impetus to the negotiations underway in anticipation of the next Ministerial Conference (MC) of the WTO.

On this occasion, Zniber also highlighted Morocco’s priorities, stressing that the Kingdom remains fully attached to the multilateral trading system “because it is the only system allowing everyone, regardless of their size or their power, to participate in the development of trade rules and ensure their application”, noting that Morocco hopes that the WTO will develop an ambitious roadmap and be up to the challenges of world trade.

One of the new Director-General’ strands of work should be to defend and promote the multilateral negotiating system, in order to put an end to the progressive marginalization of the WTO which has resulted from the proliferation of plurilateral agreements, he said.

Morocco, Zniber argued, is determined to do everything possible to ensure a “balanced package” for negotiation at the MC12 on various issues, especially fisheries subsidies, facilitation of agricultural investments and other environmental topics.

Morocco believes that the negotiation process should be able to operate more intensively and efficiently, while ensuring, under the leadership of negotiating groups Chairs, respect for the principles of multilateralism, inclusiveness and transparency, added the ambassador, explaining that we must reflect on post-MC12 challenges facing the WTO, a process that must be both transparent and inclusive, because the future of the WTO concerns all Members during these times of “economic uncertainty”.