A delegation of Taiwan notaries public talked with their counterparts Monday in Chinese mainland to mend problems and improve cross-Straits service.

The ten-member delegation, led by Lin Shu-min, deputy secretary general of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), arrived in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, on Sunday. They will stay in the mainland for a week, also visiting Shanghai and Beijing.

This is the first SEF delegation to visit the mainland after leaders of the SEF and mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) met in Taipei in early November.

At the meeting Monday, the two sides exchanged views about the development of notary service across the Taiwan Straits, said a press release issued after the meeting.

During the visit, the notaries public from the two sides will address the problems in the implementation of the agreement on using and checking notarial certificates between the two sides of the Straits.

But they refused to release what problems were to be discussed.

The agreement was signed in 1993 when the SEF and ARATS leaders met for the first time. It covered about ten sorts of notary service including heritage, adoption, birth proof and property right.

Under the agreement, the notary departments on both sides would deliver the copies of notarial certificates, which involved cross-Straits affairs, to each other and could examine the validity of the documents. This allowed people to use the certificates on the other side of the Straits.

Since 1993, more than 1 million pieces of notarial certificates have been delivered across the Straits.

(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2008)