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Mainland promises to help Taiwan through crisis

By Cao Li and Xie Yu (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-12-20 18:25

On financial cooperation, Jia called for an agreement on financial institutions on both sides of the Strait to set up branches on the other side. "Talks on establishing supervision and cooperation mechanism on banking, securities and insurances and on monetary clearing should be held soon," he said.

Jia Qinglin (L), member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), meets with Chairman of Chinese Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party Wu Poh-hsiung in Shanghai, east China, on Dec. 19, 2008. [Xinhua]

Wu Poh-hsiung agreed on the need for cooperation in the financial field. "Concrete measures are to be established to help Taiwan business in financing,” he said.

Their remarks instilled confidence in business people from both the mainland and Taiwan.

Wei Jen Tiao, chief representative of the Shanghai office of the Taiwan-based CSC International Holdings, told China Daily that he saw concrete improvement in financial cooperation from this forum. "I believe that our office will be able to operate securities services in Shanghai soon."

Both Jia and Wu urged a further opening of their market to the other side.

"Major mainland companies can participate in Taiwan's economic development," said Jia, after talking about the existing restrictions on mainland companies to export toTaiwan, or to establish businesses in the island.

 Wu said: “both sides should open its infrastructure development to the other."

Talking about the direct flight, shipping and postal service which started on Monday across the Taiwan Straits, Wu said the “three direct links” will lead the cross-Straits relationship to a new era.

Wu pointed out that there were less mainland tourists visiting Taiwan than expected after the island opened its tourism market to mainland visitors. "We need to find out the reasons, and it also proves there is great room for improvement," he said.

He voiced his confidence that the two sides could patch up differences and improve relations through frequent communications.

By October, 2008, the mainland has approved 77,000 Taiwan-funded projects with a total investment of US$47 billion, and the gross trade volume of the two sides exceeded $840 billion.

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