Asia-Pacific communications ministers are expected tomorrow to endorse the world's first multilateral mutual recognition agreement on telecommunications equipment.
After nine months of negotiations, Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) officials meeting in Singapore yesterday finalised details of a deal to slash into the red tape and testing requirements needed before marketing products in various countries.
Instead of a company having to conduct lengthy product tests in every nation to which it wants to export, it will now be able to conduct just one set of tests.
So long as the tests conform with the importing country's standards, only minimal paperwork would be required to win an import licence, thereby quickening the speed products can be put on the market.
Many countries have already made pledges to the World Trade Organisation that they will liberalise their telecommunications industries by removing various tariff barriers.
Some Apec members, however, have complained of increasing non-tariff barriers popping up in some countries to discourage foreign competition, including difficulty in getting import licences.
Mah Bow Tan, Singapore's minister for communications, said a mutual recognition agreement would cut bureaucracy, costs and time and remove one so-called non-tariff barrier from the system.