Before Ambassador de Boer's election, the WTO General Council had noted on 7 March the consensus on a slate of names of chairpersons for WTO bodies.

Ambassador de Boer was appointed as Canada's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the WTO on 21 August 2017 after previous appointments as ambassador to Poland and then Belarus and having held various positions in Global Affairs Canada and Environment Canada.

As for the new chairs to the 14 subsidiary bodies that report to the Goods Council, they will take office when they have been formally elected by the committee or working party concerned. They are:

• Market Access Committee: Ms Zsofia Tvarusco (Hungary)
• Agriculture Committee: Ms Debora Cumes Mariscal (Guatemala)
• Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Committee: Ms Noncedo Vutula (South Africa)
• Technical Barriers to Trade Committee: Ms Kate Swan (New Zealand)
• Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) Committee: Ms Carrie I-Jen Wu (Chinese Taipei)
• Anti-Dumping Practices Committee: Ms Karine Mahjoubi Erikstein (Norway)
• Customs Valuation Committee: Mr Yuichiro Okumura (Japan)
• Rules of Origin Committee: Ms Thembekile Mlangeni (South Africa)
• Import Licensing Committee: Mrs Lorena Rivera (Colombia)
• Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Committee: Mr Pedro Negueloaetcheverry    (Argentina)
• Committee on Safeguards: Mr Hyouk Woo Kwon (Korea)
• Working Group on State Trading Enterprises: Mr Antonius Yudi Triantoro (Indonesia)
• Information Technology Agreement (ITA): Mr Muhammad Nur Hadri Bin Sopri (Singapore)
• Trade Facilitation Committee: Ms Dalia Kadišienė (Lithuania)

More information on the Goods Council and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is available here.