Chen Liying/Shanghai Daily news

Direct flights should be launched on a trail basis between Shanghai and Taipei to help foster cross-strait relations, according to scholars and business executives attending a nongovernmental forum in Shanghai.
"The first problem to solve in the cooperation process between Taiwan and the mainland is to make cross-strait communications convenient," James Soong, chairman of Taiwan's People First Party, told the more than 100 delegates to the forum, which opened yesterday for discussions on direct air links between the mainland and Taiwan, Taiwanese investment on the mainland and agricultural and financial cooperation.
"A pilot flight between Shanghai and Taipei could be introduced to promote direct air service across the strait," said Soong, who heads the smaller of Taiwan's two main opposition parties.
Such flights are urgent for the more than 500,000 Taiwanese who live in Shanghai, he said.
Soong said the residents of Shanghai and Taipei share a geographic relationship and similar living standards, adding that a large volume of passengers and goods is already flowing between the two points.
Both cities have benefited from the special cross-strait charter flights for Taiwan business people that have been operated since 2003, he noted.
For the first time this year, the flights were non-stop.
"A direct traffic link would help create a golden economic triangle involving Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong," he said.
Yih-Jiau Hwang, a PFP senator, said his group is working with Taiwan's chief opposition party, the Kuomintang, on laws and regulations to prepare for a direct cross-strait air link.
"Hopefully, direct charter flights between the two sides will start in 2006," he said.
Zhou Chi, chairman of Shanghai Airlines Co Ltd, which ran eight charter flights across the strait during the past Spring Festival, is anxious to begin cooperation between mainland and Taiwan carriers.
"We could have more air routes, an expanded network and cooperation in engine and jet repair and maintenance," he said.
Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said at the forum that the mainland is willing to work to facilitate nongovernmental organizations on both sides of the strait to negotiate the flights as quickly as possible, modeled on the Spring Festival charter flights.
He proposed that a cross-strait economic cooperation mechanism be set up to help normalize economic relations.
"The mechanism would consist mainly of a conference system and a coordination agency to discuss major issues, supervise investment and trade policies and adjust allocation of resources and divisions of labor," he said.
Trade and investment between Taiwan and the mainland have been growing rapidly.
The mainland became Taiwan's largest export market in 2002, and annual trade between the two sides totals tens of billions of US dollars.
"The cooperation potential between Taiwan and mainland industries is huge," said Justin Yifu Lin, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Beijing University. "The economic development of Taiwan and the mainland are at different stages, so both sides can complement each other with their advantages."
Taiwan will continue to relocate its labor-intensive manufacturing industries to the mainland to take advantage of lower operating costs, he said.
Lin also said both sides should strengthen financial cooperation. He proposed that more Taiwan financial institutions open branches on the mainland.