The

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...

's Ministerial Conference of 1996 was held in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

on December 9 - December 13, 1996. The inaugural meeting for the organisation since its formation. The event was hosted by the government of Singapore at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre in

Suntec City Suntec City is a major mixed-use development located in Marina Centre, a subzone of the Downtown Core in Singapore, which combines a shopping mall, office buildings, and a convention centre. Construction began on 18 January 1992 and was comp ...

. The conference established four permanent working groups, covering transparency in

government procurement Government procurement or public procurement is the procurement of goods, services and works on behalf of a public authority, such as a government agency. Amounting to 12 percent of global GDP in 2018, government procurement accounts for a sub ...

, trade facilitation (customs issues), trade and investment, and trade and competition. The purpose of the first of these groups was to conduct "a study on transparency in government procurement practices, taking into account national policies and, based on this study, to develop elements for inclusion in an appropriate agreement".WTO Report (2000) of the Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement to the General Council, (31 October 2000), cited in Kinsey, M. A.
TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS?
Public Contract Law Journal , Fall 2004, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Fall 2004), pp. 155-173, accessed 9 August 2022 The topics covered by these groups collectively are called the

Singapore issues The "Singapore issues" refers to four working groups set up during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1996 in Singapore. These groups are tasked with these issues: transparency in government procurement, trade facilitation (cus ...

References

External links

*http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min96_e/min96_e.htm 1996 in Asia 1996 conferences World Trade Organization ministerial conferences Economic history of Singapore Diplomatic conferences in Singapore 20th-century diplomatic conferences 1996 in international relations December 1996 events in Asia {{International-trade-stub