Senior officials and experts from both sides of the Taiwan Straits
vowed to speed up the process of widening financial cooperation
between the two sides when they addressed a seminar at the Fourth
International Investment and Trade Symposium held in Ningbo in East
China's Zhejiang Province at the weekend.
Experts said that, although there had been a steady improvement
between the two sides in the expansion of mutual economic exchange
in the past decade or so, the mainland and Taiwan are still
developing comparatively slowly in the financial sector, which has
in many ways blocked economic growth.
Jiang Tianxi -- deputy chief executive of the First Sino Bank,
which became the first joint mainland-Taiwan bank when it was
established in Shanghai in 1997 -- said: "Time never waits. Now,
with China's entry to the World Trade Organization, with its
further opening of markets in the far western regions of its
interior, and with all kinds of great changes taking place in the
international arena, prompt action should be taken soon to develop
a healthy system of cross-Straits free capital flow and the
cooperation between the mainland's and Taiwan's financial
industry."
More than 50,000 Taiwan firms now operate on the mainland, with an
actual investment amount of about US$30 billion. However, many
businesses face financing problems, especially small and
medium-sized businesses.
Qi
Xue, president of the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Financing,
said: "In order to change the current situation of no direct
financial business exchange across the Straits, the Taiwan
authorities are substantially opening a new door for direct
financial contact with the Chinese mainland."
Previously, only offshore banking units of Taiwan banks were
allowed to engage in cross-Straits business. Now, under a series of
new policies initiated by the Taiwan authorities during the past
year, banks on the mainland and their overseas branches and
mainland-based companies are all able to do financial transactions
with Taiwan offshore banking units.
(China
Daily June 10, 2002)