The APEC Policy Support Unit just released a new assessment of its Ease of Doing Business (EoDB), which says that the "area of Getting Credit recorded the greatest progress." This is accounted for improvements in two areas - secured transactions legal framework (strength of legal rights) and credit information - where APFF work (in collaboration with IFC/WBG) has focused on helping economies enact legislation, establish collateral registries and credit information systems and license credit bureaus, among others. The Asia-Pacific Financial Inclusion Forum (APFIF) has also been pushing for this since 2011.
 
This assessment covers only 2015-2017. With the Philippines having enacted its new secured transactions law last month and hopefully with progress in Thailand's new secured transactions legislation and the secured transactions chapter of China's Civil Code, among others, as well as establishment of credit information systems in Brunei and other economies that APFF is working on, the next assessment covering 2018 and 2019 is certain to record more progress.

This interim assessment of APEC’s EoDB initiative looks at the progress of APEC in the five priority areas:

1) Starting a Business;

2) Dealing with Construction Permits;

3) Getting Credit;

4) Trading Across Borders; and

5) Enforcing Contracts.

By using indicators from the World Bank’s Doing Business in these priority areas and their corresponding values in 2015 as baseline, the assessment reveals that APEC’s combined progress in 2016 was 7.3%, exceeding the pro-rata target of 3.3%. The area of Getting Credit recorded the greatest progress, which could be explained by an improvement in the strength of legal rights and depth of credit information in the APEC region.