The Maritime Bureau of the city of Xiamen, Fujian province issued the nation's first yachting licenses, on Feb 25, China News Service has reported, to fill a licensing gap and for closer cooperation with Taiwan in the yachting business.

Xiamen is important for cross-Straits cooperation, with its many natural harbors, moderate climate, and many Fujian merchants, with great consumer market potential. The mainland's yacht companies did 1.75 billion yuan ($283 million) worth of business in 2012, with Xiamen accounting for about a third of it, according to the city's China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). The 2012 Xiamen Yacht Exhibition alone did more than 200 million yuan worth.

Many of Taiwan's yacht companies have opened offices in Xiamen in recent years, and now account for an important share of Xiamen's yacht business. Taiwan's Kaohsiung held a promotion conference in Xiamen last year, where the director of the Taiwan Yacht Industry Association, Fu Zheng, said that Xiamen and Taiwan have built cooperative relations in this area.

The director of China's National Tourism Administration, Shao Qiwei, who visited Xiamen's Tangrong Yacht Industry Co, a prominent Taiwan-backed enterprise, in 2011, says that the mainland's coastal areas will gradually develop yachting tourism and that tourism will join fishing and other offshore activities in boosting the tourism equipment business, including yachting.

Xiamen has four yacht training institutes that have held classes since 2010 and the city's Maritime Bureau says they will improve their controls on national yacht piloting licenses.

By Zhao Qian and Roger Bradshaw