New economic policies aiming to maintain the continuous growth of the Chinese mainland would also benefit Taiwanese-invested businesses, a mainland official said in Beijing yesterday.

Fan Liqing, State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman, said the mainland government had announced a series of policies recently to stimulate economic growth through expanded market demands.

This would benefit a large number of Taiwanese-funded enterprises if the mainland could maintain a "steady and relatively fast growth" in the economy, she said.

The policies would focus on measures to expand Taiwanese investment into more sectors on the mainland, and to help businesses from Taiwan participate in major infrastructure projects.

Taiwanese businesses will be encouraged to invest more in the service industry, resources development, energy-saving and environmental-friendly industries, as well as projects in the mainland's central and western regions, Fan said.

With closer cooperation in financial services between the mainland and Taiwan, it would become more convenient for small and medium enterprises from Taiwan to raise funds on the mainland.

The spokeswoman also spoke highly of a cross-Strait financial seminar which was under way in Beijing, saying this would promote substantial progress in cross-Strait financial cooperation.

More than 400 bankers and financial experts from the mainland and Taiwan attended the seminar. They stressed that the two sides should work together to cope with the current crisis, as both sides had significant foreign exchange reserves and close economic links.

The Chinese mainland is Taiwan's biggest trading partner, accounting for more than 20 percent of the island's total external trade last year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2008)