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For She Tzu-yen, a 47-year-old Taiwan farmer, this small city in east China's Fujian Province has been a place of fortune.

 

Since he invested here two years ago, his orchid flower business has been growing fast, with this year's sales expected to reach one million pots valued at millions of yuan.

 

She has invested more than US$1.5 million into his company, owning a crop area of 14,000 square meters and employing 15 people.

 

"My business wouldn't have developed so vigorously in Taiwan," he told China Daily.

 

"Low labor and land cost as well as the huge market in the mainland have contributed to my success here."

 

She, who began to plant orchids when he was 18, only had a crop area of 1,000 square meters on the island before he moved here to start his business in March 2004.

 

Taiwan's labor and land costs are estimated to be 10 times those of the mainland and the island of 23 million people also suffers limited market demand, she said.

 

She's Changchow Saliya Orchid Biotechnology ING is one of the 51 Taiwan-funded agricultural enterprises in Zhangpu Development Park for Taiwan Farmers.

 

The park was established in early 2004 by Zhangpu and upgraded to State level in April this year to encourage agricultural cooperation across the Taiwan Straits.

 

It has a planned crop area of 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares), with six sections for flowers, fruit and vegetables, tea, fish, agricultural by-products processing and pasture. The park also provides incubation and technological services for start-up firms from Taiwan.

 

By the end of last year, the park had drawn investment of US$75 million and produced nearly 400 million yuan (US$50 million) of goods.

 

"The park offers a platform for agricultural industries across the Straits to get integrated," She said. Agricultural industries across the Taiwan Straits are highly complementary, given the mainland's abundant labor and land resources and Taiwan's rich capital and advanced agricultural technology.

 

"When we invest in Fujian, we feel like we are coming home," said Rie-ho Lee, chairman of TenFu Group, a tea company based in Zhangpu.

 

"That tells why an increasing number of Taiwan investors and farmers have come to Fujian to pursue new business opportunities."

 

The 71-year-old man set up TenFu Group in 1993 and now owns 6,000 mu (400 hectares) of land for growing tea on the mainland.

 

His group has established 560 franchise tea shops on the mainland, with an annual revenue of 700 million yuan (US$87.5 million).

 

Lee stressed that hundreds of thousands of Taiwan farmers like him have benefited from the mainland's preferential agricultural policies towards the island.

 

As a goodwill gesture, Beijing decided to allow tariff-free imports of 15 varieties of Taiwan-grown fruits in May 2005 and added 11 types of vegetable and some aquatic products to the list in April this year.

 

Marketing center

 

The central government also ordered the establishment of a marketing center in Xiamen, which is close to Taiwan, to reduce costs for fruit imports from Taiwan.

 

So far, 86 Taiwan business firms have established shops in the center, which imported 360 tons of Taiwan-grown fruit valued at US$400,000 in the first half of this year.

 

Huang Cheng-ching, general manager of Taiwan's Yu-ching Farmers' Association, expressed his thanks for the mainland's incentives.

 

But he strongly complained about the lack of cross-Straits direct transport links, which has become a major hurdle for fruit trade between Taiwan and the mainland.

 

Taipei has yet to lift its decades-old ban on the three direct links business, transport and postal services - across the Taiwan Straits.

 

As Taiwan's fruit has to be transported to the mainland via Hong Kong or Macao, it usually takes at least seven days.

 

"If there were direct transport links between Taiwan and Xiamen, it would take only 22 hours and thus sharply reduce our delivery time and transport cost," Huang said.

 

Since the first Taiwan-funded agricultural firm was established in 1981, Fujian has approved 1,894 such enterprises, with investment of US$1.32 billion, ranking top on the mainland. In 2005, agricultural trade between Fujian and Taiwan amounted to US$61.64 million.

 

(China Daily August 4, 2006)