Chen Liying/Shanghai Daily news

Luo Shiqian, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of Shanghai Committee, shows James Soong (center), chairman of Taiwan’s People First Party, a blueprint for city airports at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. — Zhao Yun

James Soong, chairman of the People First Party in Taiwan, arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon to attend a non-governmental cross-strait forum today and tomorrow.
More than 60 PFP officials, scholars and experts from Taiwan will meet with about 70 counterparts from the mainland at the forum to exchange views about direct air links across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese investment in the mainland, agricultural and financial cooperation.
"The two-day forum in Shanghai is aimed at implementing the consensus reached in the Beijing talks with Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, in May," the PFP chairman said during a brief speech at Pudong International Airport yesterday.
Shanghai is an important base for Taiwan business people as the city has become a major economic and trade center in the Yangtze River Delta and the world as well, he added.
He noted there are more than 500,000 Taiwan business people living in the Yangtze River Delta region.
Soong and his delegation visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall yesterday.