predecessor religion successor birth_place nationality birth_date order term_start image article_title term_end name
mike moore christian pascal lamy bangkok , thailand thai 30 may 1946 7th director-general of the world trade organization 1 september 2002 supachai panitchpakdi.jpg supachai panitchpakdi
 1 september 2005 supachai panitchpakdi
supachai panitchpakdi

supachai panitchpakdi -lrb- , ; born may 30 , 1946 in bangkok , thailand -rrb- was secretary-general of the un conference on trade and development -lrb- unctad -rrb- from 1 september 2005 to 31 august 2013 .
prior to this , he was the director-general of the world trade organization from september 1 , 2002 to september 1 , 2005 .
he was succeeded by pascal lamy .
in 1986 supachai panitchpakdi was appointed as thailand 's deputy minister of finance , but when the parliament was dissolved in 1988 he left politics and became president of the thai military bank .
in 1992 he returned to politics and became deputy prime minister until 1995 , responsible for trade and economics .
during the asian financial crisis in november 1997 he returned to be deputy prime minister and also became minister of commerce .
in september 1999 he was elected to become director-general of the world trade organization -lrb- wto -rrb- , sharing the post with competitor mike moore when a decision could not be reached .
taking the second half of the six-year term , he entered office on september 1 , 2002 .
in march 2005 he was appointed to become the secretary-general of the un conference on trade and development -lrb- unctad -rrb- following his term at the wto , a post he took up in late 2005 .
he was appointed for a second four-year term in september 2009 .
keen to reform and revitalise the organisation , he has established a panel of eminent persons to oversee the start of reform of unctad .
supachai received his master 's degree in economics , development planning and his ph.d. in economic planning and development at the netherlands school of economics -lrb- now known as erasmus university in rotterdam -rrb- .
in 1973 , he completed his doctoral dissertation under supervision of professor jan tinbergen , the first nobel laureate in economics .
in the same year , he went to cambridge university as a visiting fellow to conduct research on development models .
he published numerous books , including `` educational growth in developing countries '' -lrb- 1974 -rrb- , `` globalization and trade in the new millennium '' -lrb- 2001 -rrb- and `` china and the wto : changing china , changing world trade '' -lrb- 2002 , co-authored with mark clifford -rrb- .
