UNITED NATIONS, October 13. /TASS/. The UN General Assembly on Thursday appointed former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres as its ninth secretary general.

Guterres will replace will replace South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon, who served two five-year terms as the UN chief, on January 1, 2017.

President of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson, said, "I'm confident that Mr Guterres will serve the global community with dedication as a moral authority and be the voice of our moral conscience and humanity throughout his term."

Guterres, 67, was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015.