The term "Singapore issues" refers to the work of four working groups set up during the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference of 1996 in Singapore. These groups are tasked with the following issues:
- transparency in government procurement,
- trade facilitation (customs issues),
- trade and investment, and
- the interaction between trade and competition.
, only trade facilitation remained a live issue within the Doha Development Agenda.
Adoption of the issues
These issues were pushed at successive Ministerials by the European Union, Japan and Korea, and opposed by most developing countries. The United States was indifferent about the inclusion of these issues, indicating that it could accept some or all of them at various times, but preferring to focus on market access. Disagreements between largely developed and developing economies prevented a resolution in these issues, despite repeated attempts to revisit them, notably during the 2003 Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, whereby no progress was made.