A mainland-Taiwan joint venture securities company in the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone, Fujian, is being established to provide better financial services for enterprises there, according to a cross-Straits economic seminar Monday.

Fubon Securities, a subsidiary of Fubon Financial Holdings, Taiwan's second largest financial holding company, has partnered with the Fujian Investment & Development Group to apply for a license from the Haixia Securities Company, said Daniel Tsai, chairman of Fubon Financial Holdings, at a seminar convened in Fuzhou.

“If Haixia Securities is approved by authorities, we probably will locate the headquarter in Pingtan to help Taiwan's enterprises go public, as well as introduce service models and concepts in Taiwan's securities sector,” said Tsai.

Guo Shuqing, former chairman of the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), said during his visit to Taiwan in January that the CSRC will consider qualified Taiwan securities companies to invest in mainland-Taiwan joint venture securities firms in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Fujian, with the Taiwan company holding up to a 51 percent stake.

Fubon Financial will strive to boost development of the cross-Straits capital market in a bid to shift the focus of the international capital market to the Asia-Pacific zone, according to Tsai.

Fujian and Taiwan can jointly set up a stock exchange to provide more financial services for enterprises in those two areas, suggested Wu Guopei, expert from the Fujian Finance Association. His proposal was echoed by Samuel Hsu, president of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation, who proposed that Exchange Traded Fund products in the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong can be listed on one another's exchanges to facilitate investors.

With renminbi internationalization trending, renminbi settlement in trades was brought up at the seminar.

Petty trades between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan are already settled in renminbi, said Wu Guopei. He also suggested creating a settlement mechanism by perhaps establishing a renminbi settlement center in Taiwan to reduce trade settlement costs.

At present, cross-Straits petty trades settled in renminbi are still limited in scope. Most of the time, the trading parties have to exchange Taiwan dollars to US dollars and then to renminbi. If export enterprises use renminbi for settlement directly, they can save costs up to 3 to 5 percent of trade volume, said Daniel Tsai.

Banks in Taiwan started to allow deposits in renminbi this year. The renminbi deposit volume is expected to reach 60 billion yuan ($9.77 billion), a target that took Hong Kong three years to realize, said Tsai. The reason is that Taiwan exports a big chunk of its products to the Chinese mainland.

Statistics show that Taiwan has become the largest import market for Fujian, as well as its fourth largest trading partner and sixth largest export market. In 2012, trade volume between the two areas hit $11.96 billion. As of the end of 2012, a total of 3,953 Taiwan-invested enterprises have settled in Fujian, the third most among the Chinese mainland's provincial-level regions.

Right now, renminbi levels in Taiwan are estimated to exceed 100 billion yuan. Renminbi has overtaken the yen as the most popular foreign currency in Taiwan, said Southeast Express.

(1 US dollar = 6.14 yuan = 29.8 Taiwan dollars)