Thailand will make business transactions easier and faster to conduct in order to move into the list of the "10 best countries for doing business" this year.

The Business Development Department plans to modernise and re-engineer its operations to become an e-department for facilitating business registrations as part of its plan for 2010.

Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot yesterday said that among the department's targets was for businesses to be able to submit their annual financial statements online this year, as well as to retrieve information online.

Thailand is ranked 12th in the world in its efficiency as a business facilitator. The department's restructuring and service improvement should help raise its ranking to ninth place this year, which will result in drawing more foreign investors to the country, he said.

The World Bank Group last year rated Singapore as the world's easiest for doing business, followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Norway and Georgia.

The department will extend its services to more than 4,559 branches of commercial banks nationwide, so companies will not have to travel to the department's offices to get a company certificate.

It will also link its accounts with the Customs Department and Social Security Office so that companies can easily contact government agencies.

It will shorten its registration service from one day to only two hours for new entrepreneurs.

It will also soon set up a dispute settlement unit to help resolve any conflicts and mediate compromises between aggrieved parties.