§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will remove at least two of the Singapore issues from the remaining trade negotiations in the interest of multilateral trade. [156329]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienEU Trade Ministers agreed on 2 December 2003 that the European Community should "unbundled" the four Singapore issues and explore alternative, more flexible approaches, including the possibility of removing some, or all, of the Singapore issues from the Doha Round.
The UK has made clear since before Cancun that we do not see investment and competition as priorities in the Doha Development Agenda. It is clear there is substantial opposition to negotiations on these issues in the WTO on the part of developing countries and we should take account of these views.