UNCTAD officials have been mourning the death of Rangaswami Krishnamurti, a former high-ranking staff member who was instrumental in the organization's founding.
Mr. Krishnamurti passed away on 18 July at his home in Columbus, Ohio, United States. He was born in 1917 in Tamil Nadu, India.
During a long international career in economics, much of it spent at UNCTAD, he rose to become the Director of the organization's then Manufactures Division, and served as Chief of the Office of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD.
An early and successful career with the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East - where he helped to bring about the establishment of the Asian Development Bank - brought him to the attention of Raúl Prebisch, who was then head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and later became UNCTAD's first Secretary-General. Mr. Prebisch had been asked by United Nations Secretary-General U Thant to lead the creation of a conference on trade and development. Mr. Prebisch invited Mr. Krishnamurti to join an informal steering committee on the subject in 1964.
As an UNCTAD staff member, Mr. Krishnamurti was instrumental in one of the organization's major achievements, the Generalized System of Preferences, through which developing countries are given special access to developed-country markets for various categories of exports.
