• Proposals by developed countries to expand the WTO's mandate to "new issues"
The biggest immediate problem facing the developing countries in the WTO is the immense pressure on them to accept the proposals by developed countries to expand the WTO's mandate to non-trade issues including establishing new agreements on investment, competition and transparency in government procurement. Developing countries are being asked to accept these new obligations as an exchange for developed countries opening their agriculture markets or for favourably considering the "implementation issues". However, the new agreements and obligations in these new areas would be detrimental to the developing countries' development prospects, and at the same time (given the past poor record of the developed countries) it is uncertain that the developed countries will really provide more meaningful market access to the developing countries nor resolve their implementation problems.
The three proposed new agreements have a common theme: increasing the rights of the foreign firms to have much greater access to the markets of developing countries. The investment agreement aims to expand the right of foreign firms to enter, invest and operate in developing countries with minimum regulation (as performance requirements would be prohibited) and to be given "national treatment" (treated at least as well as locals). The competition agreement is meant to oblige developing countries to adopt competition laws and policies, which would result in "effective equality of opportunity" for foreign firms vis-à-vis local firms. In effect this would mean that governments would not be able to assist local firms. The proposed agreement on transparency in government procurement is planned as the first stage of an eventual agreement that would grant foreign firms the same right as local firms to bid for the business of government supplies, contracts and projects. These agreements would seriously tie the hands of government, preventing it from regulating foreign firms whilst preventing it also from providing assistance or preferences to local firms and other productive units. It would severely restrict the ability of developing countries to build the capacity of their domestic sectors, enterprises and farms. (Khor 2002).