The number of Taiwanese tourists to the mainland reached a record high of 3.11 million last year, Sun Gang, vice-director of the National Tourism Administration, said.

Sun was participating in a two-day communication between tourism industries operating across the Taiwan Straits, the fourth of its kind, which closed yesterday.

Some 437,700 Taiwan compatriots visited the mainland in 1988, after the Taiwan authorities agreed to it in 1987. So far, 20.36 million people from the island have traveled to the mainland in the past 13 years, Sun said.

An increasing number of people make the journey to travel, do business or take part in technological and cultural exchanges, as well as the traditional family visiting.

Around 6 million people made tours from the island last year, half of them choosing the mainland as their destination.

Exchanges between tourism industries across the Taiwan Straits have been increasing in recent years. Every year, about 10 provincial tourism associations in the mainland are invited to Taiwan, and their Taiwanese counterparts organize groups to the mainland in return.

Sun also disclosed that around 83.49 million people from overseas visited China in the year 2000, up 14.7 from the previous year.

The tourism industry has played an increasingly important role in China's national economy in the past few years, even becoming some Chinese regions' pillar industry, he said.

It has been developing at a faster rate than the world's average over the past 20 years.

Last year, China earned US$16.2 billion in foreign exchanges, 15 per cent up from the previous year, and nearly 62 times that of 1978.

Income from domestic tourism usually comes in during the three main Chinese holidays of Labor Day, National Day and Spring Festival, said Sun. Last year income was 317.5 billion yuan (US$38.1 billion), up 12 per cent from 1999.

(China Daily 02/15/2001)