0 Indonesia Steps Up Bid to Secure Top WTO Job for Tourism Minister

Indonesian officials have been told to actively lobby for Tourism Minister Mari Elka Pangestu, 56, to take over the top job at the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the May selection deadline nears. The Straits Times understands that government officials are stepping up efforts to secure the post for Mari. The move comes as Indonesia seeks to play a greater role in global governance, with Bali playing host to the ninth WTO ministerial conference this December. 

Mari, Indonesia's first ethnic Chinese woman minister, is a highly regarded economist who studied in Singapore's St Margaret's Secondary School in the early 1970s, winning an award for best all-rounder. At the time, her father, economist Jusuf Panglaykim, taught at Nanyang University and the University of Singapore. She later attended the Australian National University, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in economics before completing her PhD in the same subject at the University of California. 

She has also seen the WTO from both sides — as an activist during the violent riots against the WTO at its 1999 Seattle meetings and as her country's trade minister from 2004 to 2011, when she was known for her pro-free trade stance. Her bid comes as major trading partners complain about Indonesia's growing protectionism in the form of quotas on meat imports and vegetables, and tariffs on imports of wheat flour, among others. But Mari has said this is an unfair perception. 

"What we have been doing is really intended for the protection of consumer safety and product standards, and that's in compliance with WTO [rules]," she said last week, acknowledging that the government could do better at communicating these measures. She added that the government has formed a team to streamline and coordinate policies in these areas. Analysts have said the next WTO chief may come from Africa or Latin America since outgoing director-general Pascal Lamy's predecessor, Supachai Panitchpakdi, is from Thailand. More than half of global trade takes place in and across the Asia-Pacific region.

Reprinted courtesy of The Straits Times
source : the jakarta globe