Rafidah Aziz said after talks with US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick that the "general agreement" reached among World Trade Organisation (WTO) members was on the so-called "Singapore" issues.

They comprised trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, cross-border investment and competition.

"My discussions with Zoellick did allude to some positive trends of people moving forward their positions -- meaning from their hardline positions to one that is more amenable to compromise," Rafidah said at a business forum in Washington.

Malaysia has been an influential champion of developing nations and an ardent critic of the West in the political and trade fronts.

Rafidah said Zoellick "confirmed" during their meeting Monday that the European Union, for example, "was willing now to just focus on trade facilitation and no longer" on the other issues -- transparency in government procurement, cross-border investment and competition.

The EU and Japan had been pushing for all the four issues -- fleshed at a Singapore meeting several years ago -- to be included in the Doha Round, much to the chagrin of developing countries which consider the issues as not of immediate priority for fuelling global trade, she said.

She hoped that Japan would follow in the footsteps of EU or "it is going to be an isolated country."

Asked at the forum whether there was now virtual consensus to pursue trade facilitation in the Doha Round with the other three issues relegated to working group discussions, Rafidah said: "When you talk about virtual consensus, I think so.

"People are so averse to having universal rules on investment and even government transparency and government procurement and on competition policy," she added.