A forum on cross-Straits enterprise development and cooperation
opened on Thursday in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei
Province.
More than 200 scholars and businessmen from the mainland and
Taiwan are attending the three-day forum that focuses on economic
cooperation and exchanges between industrial and commercial circles
on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.
The forum is jointly sponsored by the Central Committee of China
Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD) and the Hubei provincial
government.
On the first day of the forum, Hubei and Taiwan signed 21
investment contracts worth US$421 million, in the fields of
high-tech, machinery, food, building materials, textiles and
logistics.
Li Bingcai, deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of
the State Council, said cross-Straits economies are mutually
supplementary. The exchanges will not only promote the long-term
development of Taiwan companies, but also play a positive role to
boost the mainland's reform and modernization plans.
By the end of 2004, investors from Taiwan had signed 64,626
investment contracts worth US$79.9 billion with mainland
partners.
(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2005)