Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuel Saragossa. In this edition,

what's the point of the World Trade Organization? This system was built on a common purpose.

If we cannot recall that common purpose, it's going to be very difficult. We all realize we're in the

same boat, but we're not rowing in the same direction. As candidates line up to become the WTO's new leader, we ask what role the organisation still

serves at a time when the rules-based international trading system is under attack.

That's coming up here in Business Daily from the BBC.

The World Trade Organisation is in crisis and operating according to a rule book written in

1995. So said the European Union's trade policy chief, Phil Hogan. Given that, why would

anyone want the job of leading it? That's a very good question that my wife asks me every day.

Hamid Mamdu then.

He's the Egyptian candidate hoping to take over at the WTO helm.

His official candidacy is backed by the African Union, but there's stiff competition.

We'll have more from Hamid Mamdu in just a moment.

First, why does who leads the WTO even

matter? Over to the BBC's economics correspondent, Andrew Walker. The WTO does face some really

quite difficult challenges in terms of holding the whole organisation together, frankly, when we have a

situation where this administration in the United States has got some reservations about its very membership of the WTO.

So the WTO needs a Director-General who can cajole the members into acting in ways that keep the organisation together

and can give a bit of a renewed push to the whole

process of managing and extending this rules-based international trade system that the WTO is

absolutely at the heart of. And remind us again what purpose the WTO is, what role it plays.

The main ones are as a forum for settling trade disputes. The other thing the WTO is, what role it plays? The main ones are as a forum for settling trade disputes.

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