New Delhi, Sept 01: After forming a formidable coalition to fight EU-US proposal on agriculture, India, China and 14 other developing countries joined hands at the WTO to fight the attempts of industrialised nations to oppose the move to bring in new issues like investment and competition policy into the trade negotiations. The group, led by Malaysia, was originally of ten countries and now it has been expanded to 16 developing countries which have sought from WTO general council a host of clarifications on new issues called Singapore issues, which India, China and 76 other developing countries are opposing to be brought into the WTO work programme. The four Singapore issues comprise trade and investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation. Apart from Malaysia, India and China, the other countries are Bangladesh, Botswana, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Earlier, India, China and Brazil along with 17 other developing countries had formed a coalition to give a counter proposal to pro-developed EU-US framework on agriculture following which the revised draft text for Cancun ministerial beginning next week accommodated some of the developing countries' concerns on farm negotiations. Bureau Report