Supachai Panitchpakdi is the Secretary-General of the . Prior to this, he was the Director-General of the World Trade Organization from September 1 2002 to September 1 2005. He was succeeded by Pascal Lamy. Born in Thailand, he is of Hakka descent.
In 1986 Supachai Panitchpakdi was appointed as Thailand's Deputy Minister of Finance, but when the parliament was dissolved in 1988 he left politics and became president of the Thai Military Bank. In 1992 he returned to politics and became Deputy Prime Minister until 1995, responsible for trade and economics. During the Asian financial crisis in November 1997 he returned to be Deputy Prime Minister and also became Minister of Commerce.
In September 1999 he was elected to become Director-General of the World Trade Organization , sharing the post with competitor Mike Moore when a decision could not be reached. Taking the second half of the six year term, he entered office on September 1, 2002.
In March 2005 he was appointed to become the Secretary-General of the following his term at the WTO, a post he took up in late 2005. Keen to reform and revitalise the organisation, he has established a Panel of Eminent Persons to oversee the start of reform of UNCTAD.
Dr. Supachai received his Master's degree in Economics, Development Planning and his Ph.D. in Economic Planning and Development at the Netherlands School of Economics (now known as Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In 1973, he completed his doctoral dissertation under supervision of Professor Jan Tinbergen, the first Nobel laureate in economics. In the same year, he went to Cambridge University as a visiting fellow to conduct research on development models.
He published numerous books, including Educational Growth in Developing Countries , Globalization and Trade in the New Millennium and China and the WTO: Changing China, Changing World Trade .
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