APEC business travel card to include HK, Chile

APEC business travel card to include HK, Chile

PENANG, Malaysia (AFP): The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum agreed yesterday to expand the trial of a regional business travel card from Australia, South Korea and the Philippines to Chile and Hong Kong.

"Today was in a sense momentous. We finally concluded the final exchange of agreements between the five economies for the expanded trial," said Ed Killesteyn, chairman of the APEC group in charge of improving the mobility of business people in the Asia-Pacific region.

Killesteyn, who is also first assistant secretary at the Australian department of immigration and multicultural affairs, said Chile and Hong Kong were scheduled to join the APEC business travel card scheme next month.

He said the second phase of the trial would be "more sophisticated" as it would incorporate new electronic software and additional security features.

Launched last year, the APEC card allows accredited business travelers visa-free travel and faster immigration processing in special lanes.

Under the agreement reached yesterday, the five APEC members will be allowed to issue up to 2,000 cards for their nationals, Killesteyn said. That compares with about 300 cards each for Australia, South Korea and the Philippines under the first phase of the trial which began in May last year.

"We have quite a lot of interested observers," the Australian immigration official said, adding that he was "quite confident" that other members of APEC would be moving to join the scheme over the next 12 months.

The other 13 APEC members are Brunei, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

Russia, Vietnam and Peru are set to join later this year.

Killesteyn said yesterday's meeting also discussed recommendations by the Manila-based APEC Business Advisory Council to streamline immigration rules for the temporary residence of business people from APEC economies.

But he noted that this was a "more complicated" issue as it involved certain aspects of immigration policy such as benefits to local economies and protecting local workers.

Under an "action agenda" adopted by APEC leaders in Japan in 1995, members are supposed to enhance business mobility by exchanging information on immigration regulations while streamlining the processing of short-term visas and temporary residence for business visitors.