Liam Fox has made it through to the second round of the selection process to become the next director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The UK’s former international trade secretary was nominated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July, after current director general Roberto Azevedo stepped down following a seven-year tenure.

Mr Fox said on Friday: “I want this DG election to be a real choice — we need the best qualified candidate for the job with the ability to deliver what the membership is demanding. I believe I am that candidate.”

He went on to add: “It cannot be a ‘business as usual’. The WTO was facing very significant challenges before Covid-19. Those headwinds are made all the more urgent by the pandemic.

“Declining trade volumes, disagreements about the normative agenda, and most importantly, a breaking down of the multilateral consensus which enabled the WTO to be established are challenges we need to tackle head-on.”

His statement comes as he has been forced to say that his previous comments on China’s “repression and denial” of coronavirus information is also irrelevant to his bid to woo Beijing.

Speaking to the South China Morning Post, he said: “That has got nothing to do with the agenda I’ve set up for the WTO. This is exactly what I mean by trying to keep the trade agenda separate. It’s not entirely possible to keep it in a sterile environment, but as much as you can,” Fox said.

“We need to remember what the WTO is and what the WTO is not. The WTO is about getting trade to move more freely. It’s about dispute resolution inside the system and continuing liberalisation through negotiation. That is what the WTO does, it is not the [United Nations] Security Council, it is not the UN, it’s not the World Bank.”