Countries voted on Wednesday to put the head of Singapore's national patent agency in charge of global intellectual property, replacing Australian Francis Gurry at of the helm of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
After a hotly contested and at times politicised race, Daren Tang won over five other candidates, including Chinese national Wang Binying, who has served as deputy chief of the UN agency for a decade.
In a second and final round of voting by the 83 members of WIPO's coordination committee, Tang took 55 votes over 28 for Wang.
The vote still needs to be confirmed during the agency's full general assembly in May, but that is traditionally a formality.
Once confirmed, he will replace Gurry when he steps down at the end of September after 12 years at the helm.
"It really is an honour," Tang, 47, told reporters after the vote, adding that his candidacy had received "support from every part of the world."
Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu told reporters in Geneva last week that "the Americans are trying to do whatever they can and... they exert pressures (to vote for) anyone but China."
"It is not defeat," he said, adding that Beijing's active engagement and participation in the process should be seen as "a very strong indication of China's readiness to make more contributions to the international community."
Tang hailed all of the candidates, saying they had "run in a spirit of mutual respect", and said the unusually large number of candidates initially in the race showed "how important WIPO is to the global community."
If confirmed as head of the agency, he vowed to "connect IP much closer to the community, much more closer to the people, make IP more relevant to the man in the street."
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