By KENNY CHEE

EXPECT doing business in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) economies to be smoother in the future.

Apec trade and foreign ministers pledged yesterday to make doing business in the region 25 per cent cheaper, faster and easier by 2015.

They aim to make a 5 per cent improvement by 2011.

Under this pledge, the cost of regulatory processes for doing business will be cut. For example, starting a business could cost up to US$500 (S$694) less.

Companies can also expect to obtain regulatory approvals for doing business more quickly.

For instance, it can take one week less to start a business.

Fewer procedures will be needed to do business.

The number of procedures to obtain a construction permit will be cut by five, while the number of steps to settle a contract dispute will be dropped by nine.

At a media conference yesterday, Singapore?s Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, who co-chaired the Apec Ministerial Meeting, said that the targets have been set as part of efforts to accelerate economic integration in the region.

But Apec economies have not decided how to create a free-trade area in the region. Singapore?s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yeo, who also co-chaired the Apec Ministerial Meeting, said that the free-trade area is a ?longterm goal for all of us to achieve? and that ?various possibilities are being explored?.

Mr Lim said that the freetradearea is a ?huge undertaking? as it involves 21 Apec economies that account for more than half of the world?s gross domestic product.

Yesterday, Apec finance ministers pledged not to withdraw economic stimulus packages until there is a long-lasting recovery in private demand.

They agreed that the varying stages of economic recovery in the region would have to be taken into account in determining the speed at which the stimulus packages are withdrawn.

They also discussed the need to find new sources of demand ?in order to keep growing? because the old patterns of demand are not expected to return, said Singapore?s Finance Minister, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who chaired the Apec Finance Ministers? Meeting.

To continue growing, reforms are needed to improve the region?s investment environment, incentivise private-sector spending and boost domestic purchasing power over the long term, especially in Asian economies, he said.

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