Many of the new issues currently being discussed by trade experts as likely candidates for the multilateral negotiations 1 are actually not so new. Discussions on them began in the mid-1990s.
At the ministerial conference in Singapore in December 1996, four new issues—trade and investment, trade and competition policy, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation were introduced to the WTO agenda. They came to be known as the Singapore issues.
While three of the four Singapore issues were dropped in the 2004 July package, the fourth issue was sealed with the trade facilitation agreement at the Bali Ministerial Meeting in 2013.
New Issues
Some of the new issues that are currently being discussed may have the origins in the Singapore issues. Investment issues, competition policy, a transparency in government procurement are some of the new issues in currency. They are already in place in different trade agreements, especially some of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAS), mega Free Trade Agreements (FTAS) like Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), plurilateral agreements like Government Procurement Agreements (GPA), and regional agreements like ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA).
Trade & Investment
A contentious “new issue” which may enter the multilateral negotiations is trade and investment. While the multilateral negotiations of 2004 rejected this issue, an investment chapter has appeared in many trade agreements and exclusive investment treaties have been signed bilaterally as well as regionally.
Trade agreements which give cover investment issues extensively include the 2012 US Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (US Model Treaty), ACIA 2009, TPPA and TTIP.
Government Procurement
Governments are one of the largest buyers in the domestic market and procure around 30%-40% of GDP in developing countries. Government procurement has been traditionally used as a development policy tool by the developed as well as developing countries, especially to encourage small and medium enterprises (SMES).
Government procurement has been used as a policy tool for:
State-owned Enterprises
It is important to note that many countries have some form of competition policy in place. But competition laws in most of the countries exclude State owned Enterprises (SOES), because such enterprises have been set up in many strategic industries to fulfill social social objectives as well as to generate income for governments. In many countries these industries/services include banking, insurance, telecom, transportation, infrastructure, and oil and gas utilities.
Labour Standards
Labour standards in international trade are increasingly becoming a contentious issue. At the 1996 Singapore Ministerial Conference of the WTO, the International Labour Organization (ILO)was recognised as the competent body to negotiate labour standards and it was suggested that the WTOSecretariat will work together with it on technical issues for “coherence” in global economic policymaking. Currently, none of the wtocouncils and committees work on labour standards.