The Chinese mainland welcomes exchange of views on the issues of charter flight across the Taiwan Straits and mainland travelers' visit to the island with personages from all Taiwan-based political parties and groups, including the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who support the development of cross-Straits relations, said a mainland official here Wednesday.

"We'd like to exchange views and work with them to jointly push forward the issues, which are set to benefit the people from the two sides," said Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, during a discussion with visiting Kuomintang party group headed by its legislative leader Tseng Yung-Chuan.

"The realization of the charter flight and travel as early as possible is the common desire of and in the interest of the compatriots from the two sides and will facilitate the common prosperity and development of Taiwan and the mainland," said Chen.

The mainland would actively consider and promote in a pragmatic way any solution or idea that may facilitate the development of cross-Straits personnel exchange and economic and trade ties and that is in the interest of airline companies from the two sides, he said.

"We have repeatedly said that we hope the civil aviation trade organizations from the two sides to conduct as early as possible their consultation on holiday and routine passenger flights and cargo flights on the basis of the current operation models," he said.

Consultations on concrete operational issues to that effect have been fully discussed and some initial results have been achieved, he said.

"We've never set any precondition or excluded any consultation on the cargo charter flight issue," he said, calling on the Taiwan authorities, starting from the real interests of the Taiwan people and the airlines, to approve earlier consultation between the airlines.

(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2006)