The Chinese mainland will further promote economic and cultural exchanges between the Taiwan Straits and bring benefits to the people on both sides, said Zheng Lizhong, a senior mainland official in charge of Taiwan affairs, on Friday.

Such exchanges and cooperation have developed into "an unprecedented new situation" and kept the trend of vigorous improvement, said Zheng, executive deputy director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on the sidelines of the 17th CPC National Congress.

Between 2003 and May 2007, Taiwan residents made 17.14 million trips to the mainland, and residents of the mainland had 740,000 travels to Taiwan, said Zheng. During the same period, Taiwan business people invested in 18,000 projects in the mainland with US$11.49 billion actually funneled from Taiwan.

Chartered passenger flights for holidays and emergency medical occasions and chartered cargo flights have been conducted across the Straits, the official said.

Zheng, a delegate to the Party congress, said the report by Hu Jintao delivered at the opening of the congress is of great importance in guiding and improving the future work on Taiwan affairs, enhancing ties across the Straits, and pushing forward the process of peaceful reunification.

Hu said in the report: "The 1.3 billion people on the mainland and the 23 million people in Taiwan are of the same blood and share a common destiny. We will make every effort to achieve anything that serves the interests of our Taiwan compatriots, contributes to the maintenance of peace in the Taiwan Straits region, and facilitates peaceful national reunification."

In this regard, Zheng noted that the compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits have the same root and source, and China is the common home for the compatriots on both sides.

"The advancement of cross-Straits relations has fully shown that separation harms the two sides and reunion is beneficial to both," the official said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 20, 2007)