Improving cooperation on technological standards across the Taiwan Straits should make both sides more globally competitive, it was agreed at a forum in Beijing yesterday.

"The two sides should enhance exchange and cooperation to confront fiercer international competition," Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee said.

The two-day discussion was organized by Taiwan Sinocon Industrial Standards Foundation in Taiwan, and China Communications Standards Association and Chinese Electronics Standardization Association.

"We hope to build a platform for the two sides to cooperate on research and development of technological standards," Chen added.

"In fact, the forum is a result of a visit by Kuomintang (KMT) leader Lien Chan in early May," Chen said.

"The information industry is a key sector in Taiwan. We hope this will be a good start," said Chiang Pin-kung, board chairman of Sinocon Industrial Standards Foundation, and vice chairman of the KMT.

"And we see a lot of potential for the two sides in the areas of information industry and technological standards," Chiang added.

For example, on standards already developed by the mainland, Taiwan could provide corresponding products.

For standards in their early stages of development, Taiwan could either team up with mainlanders or make partner recommendations .

"The scale of the Taiwan market is quite limited. Teaming up with the mainland market means a lot to the Taiwan side," Chiang said.

Figures from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) showed that the mainland's information sector reaped an industrial output of 908.7 billion yuan (US$109.5 billion) last year. Electronic and information industry sales reached 2.65 trillion yuan (US$319.2 billion).

And by the end of last month, telephone subscribers on the mainland reached 700 million.

"Cooperation in standardization is a good way for the two sides to become leaders in the technology field," Pang Chien-Kuo, chief consultant to the Sinocon Foundation, told China Daily yesterday on the sidelines of the forum.

According to Pang, both sides should be able to cooperate in many fields.

"We should take advantage of the huge market and the quick progress of technology on the mainland and the strength of Taiwanese companies in product design and international market development to enable us all to stand out in the international market," Pang said.

During the forum, views have been exchanged on TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access), AVS (audio and visual standard), mobile storage and high definition flat panel displays.

According to Pang, five of Taiwan's major telecom operators are all set to launch 3G operations at the end of this year.

"For TD-SCDMA technology, we will actively participate in areas such as handset terminals, chipset, software development and value-added telecom services," he said.

Yang Hua, secretary-general of TD-SCDMA Industrial Alliance, yesterday echoed Pang's remarks.

"We are in negotiations with some Taiwan-based firms to talk about possible cooperation," he told China Daily.

He is quite confident that agreements are likely to be reached at the latter half of the year.

In another development, Taiwanese audio solution provider C-Media Electronics Inc joined the mainland's Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing (IGRS) standardization group.

The Taipei-based company is the IGRS' 45th member and the first audio solution provider from Taiwan.

(China Daily July 6, 2005)