MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lamy expected to be re-elected for another five years as head of WTO

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy,

The World Trade Organization's 153 members were set Thursday to approve another four-year term for Director-General Pascal Lamy, who is running unopposed for the top job

Lamy, a 62-year-old member of the French Socialist Party, has headed the WTO since 2005. His second term will start September first.

At a question-and-answer session with Lamy and the full membership on Wednesday, no delegate expressed an objection to Lamy's reappointment. Countries in effect gave Lamy their approval in December when they proposed no other candidate by a year-end deadline.

Lamy's leadership of the body setting the rules for global commerce has been dogged by members' failure to conclude a new global trade pact. The talks were launched in Doha, Qatar, more than seven years ago with the goal of wrapping up a deal by December 2004.

With no end in sight, the trade round will soon become the longest ever by surpassing in length the 1994 Uruguay Round, which created the WTO out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Lamy has promised that concluding the Doha round for liberalizing trade will the top priority of his second mandate.

Before becoming WTO chief, Lamy was the European Union's trade commissioner for five years, leading the EU's efforts in several high-profile disputes against the Untied States and developing countries