Cross-Strait economic cooperation expected to boom
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A senior mainland official said Thursday that economic cooperation across the Taiwan Strait will boom this year driven by a cross-Strait economic pact and business chances in the mainland.
The early harvest program under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which took effect this month, will boost business across the Strait, said Chen Yunlin, president of the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS).
Chen made the remarks in a meeting with Kuo Shan-hui, chairman of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland, and other Taiwan businessmen.
Under the early harvest program, the Chinese mainland reduces tariffs on 539 Taiwanese goods while Taiwan drops the duties on 267 mainland goods.
Within two years, the duties on those products will be eventually reduced to zero.
Cross-Strait trade and personnel exchanges reached the record high last year and regular consultations between the two sides moved on steadily, Chen said.
He expressed his hope that Kuo's association would continue to serve its member companies and help them expand their businesses on the mainland, so as to contribute to the development of cross-Strait economic cooperation.
From January to November 2010, cross-Strait trade reached 131.76 billion U.S. dollars, up 39.7 percent over the same period of 2009.
In the first 11 months in 2010, 4.68 million Taiwan people traveled to the mainland, a year-on-year rise of 13.6 percent, while 1.49 million mainland residents visited Taiwan, up 69.6 percent.
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