The Chinese mainland will continue to deepen media exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan, said Ye Kedong, vice director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, on Thursday.

The mainland will make efforts to facilitate the mechanism of dispatching resident correspondents to each other, Ye said at a symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the mainland's official opening to Taiwan media.

In November 1987, the All-China Journalists' Association, commissioned by the State Council, announced that the mainland was welcoming Taiwan journalists to visit.

The mainland started to allow resident Taiwan correspondents in 1994 and so far 11 Taiwan media organizations have dispatched permanent correspondents to Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Chengdu and other mainland cities.

However, Taiwan authorities did not give green light to permanent mainland correspondents until November 2000 when only four mainland media organizations, including Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily, were allowed to dispatch resident reporters to the island.

The admittance was expanded to the China News Service in July 2004, but the permits for resident correspondence of Xinhua and People's Daily were suspended in 2005 only because the two media covered, objectively, different opinions from those of Taiwan authorities. The suspension has not been called off till now.

In the past 20 years, the mainland has received 13,800 Taiwan journalists but Taiwan admitted only more than 700 mainland reporters, according to Ye.

Ye said the mainland expects Taiwan authorities to stop making obstacles for cross-straits media exchanges and readmit resident correspondents from Xinhua and People's Daily.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2007)