The Bank of China will offer nearly 9.3 billion yuan worth of credits to 12 Taiwan-funded companies. The announcement was made by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the Bank of China.

To help fight the global financial crisis, around 70 Taiwan-funded businesses participated on the news conference on Wednesday. Twelve of them sealed agreements with BOC, with total credits worth 9.3 billion yuan.

Li Lihui, BOC president said "Our scale is much bigger than Taiwan-based lenders. So we could provide larger financial support, especially when it comes to big projects and companies. We also pay attention to small and medium sized enterprise. Because most Taiwan companies on the Chinese mainland are SMEs."

The Bank of China aims to provide 50 billion yuan in new loans to Taiwan-funded firms on the Chinese mainland within the next few years. It also plans to set up a commercial branch in Taiwan to expand support to Taiwan businessmen.

Zheng Lizhong, Deputy Executive Deputy Director of Taiwan Affairs Office of State Council said "Taiwan-funded companies have been trying very hard, but they also experienced lots of difficulties. We have to figure out a way to help them. Therefore the meeting is the good way to solve it. "

Figures show that by the end of last year the Chinese mainland had approved over 77,000 project proposals from Taiwan business people. Direct investment totaled nearly 48 billion US dollars.

Also by the end of last year, the mainland's exports to Taiwan reached 152 billion US dollars. And Taiwan's exports to the mainland were 706 billion US dollars.

(CCTV April 10, 2009)