Mainland-Based Taiwanese's Return Trip Shortened

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 10, 2002

Mainland-Based Taiwanese's Return Trip Shortened

The sound of a ship's siren on Saturday morning announced the start of a homeward journey by 181 Taiwanese people who have businesses or work on the mainland.
This is the first time in fifty years that Taiwanese have been able to make a through trip from the mainland to Taiwan without stopping at Hong Kong or Macao.

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The sound of a ship's siren on Saturday morning announced the start of a homeward journey by 181 Taiwanese people who have businesses or work on the mainland.

The ship left the dock at Xiamen in south China's Fujian Province for Mazu, where passengers will take a flight to Taiwan to celebrate next week's Spring Festival,.

This is the first time in fifty years that Taiwanese have been able to make a through trip from the mainland to Taiwan without stopping at Hong Kong or Macao.

Sources say that another group of more than 100 people will also take the new route home and they will come back to the mainland the same way.

Huang Tierong, a Xiamen-based Taiwanese businessman, said that the new route is not only time-saving but also reduces the cost to only a quarter of the former 16,000 Taiwan currency.

Passengers hope that the new route will soon become regular, breaking the bottleneck of direct transportation between the mainland and Taiwan.

Statistics show that since direct shipping transportation between the city and Jinmen opened on January 2, 2001, some 22,000 Taiwanese have traveled to the mainland by sea.

Over one third of the Jinmen population have visited the mainland.

"Mini links" between the mainland and Taiwan

Three Taiwanese passenger ships carrying around 700 people on Tuesday, January 2, 2001, headed for Fujian, the southeastern coastal province facing Taiwan on the mainland, launching unprecedented direct "mini links" between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits.

Two boats, "Tai Wu" and "Wu Chiang", were to make a two-hour journey to Xiamen city in Fujian province, 41 kilometers away.

Separately another passenger boat, "Taima", with some 500 worshippers of the Taoist Mazu sea goddess of the same name also set sail for Fuzhou city on a maritime pilgramage.

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