Tourists from Taiwan kick off car tour in Xiamen

A driver from Taiwan gives the thumbs up for the customs services in Xiamen, Fujian province, on Monday. He was one of the 62 Taiwan tourists who are on a driving tour in the city. Chen Lijie / for China Daily

The government is encouraging Fujian province and Taiwan to strengthen exchanges further, after tourists from the island gained permission to drive their own cars when visiting the province, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said on Wednesday.

"The normalization of driving tours improves the exchanges and cooperation between the two sides," the spokesman, Ma Xiaoguang, said at a regular news briefing. "Fujian and Taiwan are closely related in history, as well as today."

Asked when mainland tourists will be able to ferry their cars to Taiwan, Ma said the schedule depends on Taiwan's policies.

Ten cars on a ferry from Taiwan came ashore on Monday in Xiamen, Fujian province, with drivers and passengers eager to visit southeastern China.

Those cars, plus eight more rented in Xiamen, were to carry 62 Taiwan residents on a four-day caravan, the second such tour and the latest development in cross-Straits cooperation.

The first tour took place in May in Pingtan, an island county just off the mainland that is a pilot zone for cross-Straits ties. The second tour expanded to Xiamen.

Unlike the first event, which restricted visitors to the island, Monday's group landed on the mainland and began to drive through the province.

"The paperwork for this tour was easy and convenient," Chen Wen-sang, a visitor from Taiwan, said on Monday.

Chen said he looking forward to visit a tulou, an earthen building that traditionally served as a communal residences in Fujian. The tulou are among the most popular tourist attractions in the region.

In the past 10 months, Xiamen hosted more than 600,000 Taiwan tourists on overnight stays, the highest of all mainland cities, according to Zhang Guoliang, deputy head of the Xiamen tourism authority.

Zhang said that during the same period, more than 310,000 mainland tourists visited Taiwan through Xiamen.

"The Xiamen government has long promoted the process. The normalization has a profound influence on cross-Straits cooperation," Tan Zhuanglong, deputy executive secretary at Xiamen municipal government, said at a welcoming ceremony on Monday. "I hope both sides will work to get mainland vehicles to Taiwan as soon as possible."