Mainland to expand business ties with Taiwan: Chinese Premier
18/3/2008 17:33
The Chinese mainland will expand the range and scope of business ties and
trade with Taiwan, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing today.
"We will
continue to increase exchanges in economic and trade fields with Taiwan,
particularly we want to resume the three direct links between the two sides as
quickly as possible," said Wen at a press conference right after China's
parliament ended its first annual full session.
He said the mainland will
continue the expand the scope of economic exchanges with Taiwan in such fields
as investment, trade, tourism and banking for win-win and mutually beneficial
cooperation.
"To serve the interest of people in Taiwan, we are even ready to
make necessary sacrifices," Wen said, adding that Taiwan has been running a huge
trade surplus with the mainland for many years.
Last year alone, trade
between the mainland and Taiwan stood at 120 billion US dollars, with Taiwan
having a surplus of 70 million US dollars.
In contrast, more than 2,000
products from the mainland are still denied access to Taiwan's market while the
mainland has continued to give market access to products from Taiwan, including
agricultural products, said the premier.
Taiwan also imposed restrictions on
investment from mainland while more than 70,000 Taiwan enterprises had entered
the mainland market, bringing a total investment of 48 billion US dollars.
If
the investment through the third party was included, the figure was over 70
billion US dollars, Wen said.
"On all these issues, we can conduct
consultations on the basis of equality and mutual benefits. By doing so, we are
actually tapping full potentials of our complementarity on each side," he
said.
Xinhua
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