THE selection of Brazil's Roberto Azevedo as the next head of the World Trade Organization may help ease emerging markets' resistance to lifting barriers in global trade talks.

Azevedo, who is now Brazil's ambassador to the Geneva-based WTO, defeated former Mexican Trade Minister Herminio Blanco in the final round of closed-door talks among the WTO's 159 members, putting him in line to become the first director-general from Latin America. Members of the body's general council will meet next Tuesday to formally appoint the new director, the WTO said in a statement yesterday.

"Mexico may be the darling of the West but it lacks widespread support across the developing world" and is seen as too close to the US, said Kevin Gallagher, a Boston University professor of international relations who researches issues of global economic governance. "A deal endorsed by Brazil would trigger support from emerging markets" including peers China and India in the increasingly assertive BRICS group.