EU's Lamy Selected as New WTO Chief, Uruguay Says (Update1)

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- Former European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has been selected to head the World Trade Organization, according to his rival for the job, the Uruguayan candidate Carlos Perez del Castillo.

``I have already requested to withdraw my candidacy,'' Castillo, Uruguay's senior trade negotiator and former chairman of the WTO's governing council, said by telephone. ``I have tried to reach Mr. Lamy to congratulate him. We have a difficult task ahead, and right now above all it important to concentrate on finishing this round.''

Lamy, a 58-year-old Frenchman, ended a five-year stint as EU trade commissioner on Nov. 21. Before that, he was No. 2 at Credit Lyonnais SA, overseeing the privatization of the French bank after it lost $20 billion in a series of scandals.

With a budget of 157 million Swiss francs ($130 million) and 600 staff, Lamy will be responsible for overseeing the only global rules governing trade between nations. Answerable to member governments, he'll be charged with managing a December summit in Hong Kong and brokering a global accord next year that cuts border tariffs and opens markets to goods and services.

The WTO's heads of delegations will meet at 5 p.m. in Geneva to hear a report by Amina Chawahir Mohamed, Kenya's ambassador to the trade body who chaired the three-month consultations, on the selection of the new director-general. They will probably approve Lamy as successor to Supachai Panitchpakdi immediately afterward.

`Very Capable'

``Lamy is an impressive individual and very capable,'' said Alan Oxley, Australia's ambassador to the WTO's predecessor from 1985-89. ``But as commissioner, Lamy sought to accommodate significant anti-globalization causes such as labor and the environment in a way that could damage the core mission of the WTO. Unless we see a different Pascal Lamy, one would have to assume he'll continue to do the same.''

After eliminating two of his three rivals, Lamy had to win the support of poor nations, including former European colonies in Africa, the Pacific and Caribbean. The WTO's consensus system, used in the selection as for all the organization's decisions, means that any of the body's members could have blocked his appointment.

Talks Near Crisis

The choice of director-general proved so contentious the last time the WTO sought a new chief in 1999 that its members split the job into two three-year terms, shared between former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore and Supachai, a former deputy prime minister of Thailand.

Supachai, confirmed May 11 as the next head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, told negotiators last month that the WTO's Doha Round of global talks are ``close to a crisis.''

``This round isn't going to be concluded without difficult political decisions by people in capitals,'' said John Weekes, senior trade adviser at law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood in Geneva and a former Canadian ambassador to the WTO. ``Lamy has moved in those circles, has access to them and knows how to deal with them.''

Mauritian Foreign Minister Jaya Krishna Cuttaree and Brazil's WTO ambassador, Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa, the other two candidates, were both eliminated after consultations among the WTO's members.