The director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, said on Nov. 4 he would seek a second term as head of the organization and renewed his vow to conclude the Doha round of talks to open up world trade. In a letter to the chairman of the WTO General Council, Bruce Gosper, he said that concluding the Doha round would go a long way towards establishing a multilateral trading system and ensuring that opening up trade would serve developing countries goals Lamy said he would fight for when he took the job. Speaking in Geneva, Lamy again stressed the vital role of reaching a Doha round agreement to help fend off protectionist pressures and restore trust, drawing parallels with 1929 and the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of the 1930s that deepened the Great Depression.
