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2010 sees growing peace across the Stratis

Xinhua, January 12, 2011

Last year witnessed growing momentum in the peaceful development of ties between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, a mainland Taiwan affairs spokesperson said Wednesday.

Fan Liqing, spokesperson for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a regular press conference in Beijing, that the mainland and Taiwan authorities had advanced mutual understanding and maintained sound interaction during 2010.

Meetings between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) had been institutionalized and three agreements, including the cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), were signed.

Fan said cross-Strait trade had boomed. Trade volume from Jan. to Nov. 2010 totaled a record high of 131.7 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 39.7 percent year on year.

Over the same period, the mainland had approved 2,727 investment projects from Taiwan, an increase of 21.9 percent year on year. And 47 mainland corporations had invested 137 million U.S. dollars in their Taiwan-based businesses, with mainland investors in Taiwan increasing to 63.

Cross-Strait financial cooperation also made headway, said Fan. Six Taiwan banks have been approved to open branches in the mainland, and five of them had started businesses. Three banks from the mainland also got approval to run representative offices in Taiwan.

Fan also noted that progress had been made in people-to-people exchanges in the past year. From Jan. to Nov., 4.68 million residents from Taiwan visited the mainland, up by 13.6 percent, and 1.49 million mainland residents visited Taiwan, up by 69.6 percent year on year.

Some 1.16 million mainland tourists visited Taiwan during the past year, a year-on-year increase of 92.6 percent. The mainland had become the largest source of tourists for Taiwan, said Fan.