ASIA-PACIFIC businesses, including those in Singapore, are responding to the recession with more strategic changes than their European counterparts, a KPMG survey has found.

In April, 850 senior decision-makers with companies whose annual turnover exceeds US$250 million were polled across 29 countries on their response to the economic downturn.

'Asian companies seem to be readying themselves for a new and different set of economic rules coming out of this recession,' said Owi Kek Hean, head of KPMG Tax services in Singapore.

'But European businesses seem to believe that barring some tightening of regulations on the banks, their economies will emerge from the crisis largely unchanged.'

Over 80 per cent of companies surveyed in Japan and Singapore have planned strategy changes in the next decade.

This compares with 46 per cent in the US, 42 per cent in the UK and less than a third in European countries such as Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

Among the 25 Singaporean respondents to the survey, 64 per cent plan to change their strategy in the next year as a result of the downturn - a figure second only to Ireland's.

In terms of how strategy is likely to change, 62 per cent are changing geographic markets and the same percentage intend to change their business models, the survey found.

Forty per cent of local respondents said they have planned for fresh waves of investment within the next 18 months, with only 8 per cent leaving that until after 2011.

This is in line with the Singapore respondents' expectations of when the economy will recover - more than 75 per cent reckon things will pick up next year or the year after.

The key immediate response to the downturn has been to cut costs. Eighty-four per cent have done so by reducing procurement costs, and 80 per cent by optimising business processes.

Singapore was also 'one of the few jurisdictions where better tax efficiency was seen as an important tool for controlling costs' - 64 per cent of respondents thought so, the survey found.