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"Recent research at ESCAP finds that a 5-per-cent reduction in the cost associated with preparing export documents and moving goods from the factory to the ship may lead to an increase in exports of 4 per cent or more," Ravi Ratnayake, director of the Trade and Investment Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific told the SME forum in Beijing which ended on Friday.

This was one of the major recommendations discussed in Beijing at a regional policy forum on trade facilitation and SMEs. The forum, which opened on Wednesday, brought together governments, enterprises and trade-facilitation experts and practitioners to discuss how to help SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region deal with the current crisis.

"The hidden costs of trade are high, in some cases up to 15 per cent of the value of goods traded," Ratnayake told the forum.

"This is particularly hard for SMEs because they simply do not have the capacity to deal with complex and opaque procedures."

John S Wilson, lead economist at the World Bank's Research Department, said: "Trade-facilitation reform matters a great deal to development. Out of crisis comes opportunity, the opportunity to reform now for the future. World Bank research estimates, for example, gains of over US$400 billion [Bt13.8 trillion] in global GDP with increased transparency in trade in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation bloc alone."

The recommendations discussed during the forum included accelerating the computerisation and automation of trade documentation and procedures to reduce the time, cost and uncertainties associated with moving goods across borders. The special needs of SMEs for assistance in understanding and completing export procedures clearly and succinctly must also be addressed, the forum heard.

In discussing the impact of the financial crisis on Chinese SMEs that are heavily dependent on foreign trade, Yu Ping, vice chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of Trade and Investment, said: "To meet the challenge, it is of critical importance that governments come up with practical and effective policy packages that facilitate foreign trade and reinvigorate SMEs."