Three women, two of them from Africa, advanced to the second round of selection to become the next director-general of World Trade Organization as the field was cut from eight to five, Geneva-based body said on Friday.

WTO is looking for a new director-general to replace Brazilian Roberto Azevedo, who stepped down a year earlier than expected at the end of August.

The 25-year-old trade body has never had a leader who is female or from Africa.

The five to go through to the next round are Kenyan minister, Amina Mohamed; former Nigerian Finance Minister of Finance, Mrs  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; South Korean Trade Minister, Yoo Myung-hee; Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri; and British ex-minister Liam Fox.

This confirms Reuters' reporting on Thursday that Mexico's Jesus Seade, Egypt's Hamid Mamdouh and Moldovan Tudor Ulianovschi were eliminated.

Azevedo's successor will face a considerable challenge with rising global tensions and protectionism during a Covid-induced slowdown, most obviously between Beijing and President Donald Trump's U.S. administration, and pressure to drive reform.

Round two, in which WTO's 164 members will give their preferences from Sept 24 to Oct 6, will whittle the candidates down to two. WTO has said it wants to select the winner by early November.

Trade experts and former WTO officials say that the U.S. presidential election, on Nov. 3. could extend the process, even if that goes against WTO's prescribed deadline.

However, WTO said the process had gone well so far and that all members had taken part.

"The objective is to have this process completed within 2 months - it began on 7 September so on or about 7 November, so we are on track for this. The process has gone smoothly," WTO spokesman, Mr Keith Rockwell told reporters.

Reuters