Bark Tae-ho, South Korea's candidate to succeed Pascal Lamy as head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), was appointed as honorary ambassador for economic and trade affairs, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

The former South Korean trade minister over the past 14 months was named as the honorary ambassador with a one-year tenure to support his campaign activities for the director-general of the WTO, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Bark is competing against eight candidates from Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand, Kenya, Ghana, Jordan and Costa Rica. The incumbent WTO head Lamy is slated to step down in August when his second four-year term ends.

The new head will be elected by May after three rounds of votes scheduled to start from April. The Geneva-based WTO was set up in 1995.