Former WTO Chief Lamy to visit Sri Lanka on Friday to win support for French bid for World Expo 202

Former General Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Pascal Lamy, inter-ministerial delegate in charge of the preparation of the French candidature for the World Expo 2025 will arrive in Sri Lanka on 5 January to present the French bid. 

A total of 170 delegates representing the member countries of the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) will elect the host country of the 2025 World Expo on November 2018. The proposed theme ‘Sharing our knowledge, Caring for our planet’ is focused on the future and on youth.  Two young Sri Lankans are also among the 100 young ambassadors selected from 70 countries around the world. 

From September 2005 to August 2013, Lamy served for two consecutive terms as General Director of the WTO. A committed European and member of the French Socialist party, he was Chief of Staff for the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1994. He then joined the Credit Lyonnais as CEO until 1999, before returning to Brussels as European Trade Commissioner until 2004. Lamy holds degrees from HEC School of Management, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP) and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Lamy was appointed, in 2015, interministerial delegate for the preparation of the French candidature for the Universal Exhibition 2025, and in 2016 President of the French Committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and chair of the European group of experts in charge of evaluating the impact of EU research funding. He shares his other activities between the Jacques Delors Institute (President emeritus), the presidency of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics, as well as various mandates or missions related to international affairs. 

He is also President of the Board of Directors of the Musiciens du Louvre  (Orchestra of Marc Minkowski), member of the Board of Directors of the Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, Transparency International France and the Center on Regulation in Europe (CERRE), special advisor of TradeMarkEastAfrica (TMEA) and of the World Trade Board, member of the Advisory Board of Transparency International, the Oxford Martin School, of UNITAID, of the Friedland Institute, of Chatham House’s group on EU-Chia partnership and affiliate Professor at HEC. He is currently also member of the Global Future Council on regional Governance at the World Economic Forum. 

Lamy is author of various books and reports on global governance, Europe and international trade. His latest publications are: Oxford Martin Commission: ‘Now for the long term’ (2013); ‘The Geneva Consensus’ (Cambridge University Press, 2013); ‘Quand la France s’éveillera’ (Odile Jacob, 2014), ‘Oùva le monde?’ (Odile Jacob, 2017).

Lamy also lectures to the benefit of Institut Jacques Delors or other non-profit organisations on issues related to globalisation, global governance, international trade, international economics, regional inwtegration, European and French issues.

In a recent poll casted by the British magazine Prospect (April 2014), Lamy is in the top 50 of the world’s leading thinkers. He is also ranked among the 100 most influential thinkers of the ‘Thought Leader Map 2015’ published by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.