Mainland official calls for closer cross-Straits agricultural links

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Mainland official calls for closer cross-Straits agricultural links

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The principles of Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) trade agreements between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and Macao can also be applied to the farm produce trade between the mainland and Taiwan, a mainlandofficial said here Wednesday.

"We are willing to exchange ideas with Taiwan's agricultural officials in this aspect," said Ren Airong, deputy director of theTaiwan Affairs Office under the Ministry of Agriculture.

Signed in June last year, the mainland/Hong Kong CEPA aims to phase out tariffs and non-tariff goods trade barriers, phase in liberalization of services trade, and promote trade and investmentfacilitation for common development. It took effect on Jan. 1 thisyear.

Ren said the mainland will provide more market room and more convenient quarantine, customs inspection and logistics services for Taiwan's farm produce, and the mainland expects more agricultural people from Taiwan to start business here, so that the two sides can complement each other in agriculture and respondto global challenges together.

The two sides have strengthened exchanges in agriculture since the 1980s by launching agricultural technological cooperation projects and holding seminars and trade fairs.

The cross-Straits Agricultural Exchange Association alone have received over 200 visiting groups with more than 2,100 guests fromTaiwan in the past two decades, according to the official.

In 1997, the mainland started to set up pilot zones for cross-Straits agricultural cooperation in Fujian, Hainan, Shandong, Heilongjiang and Shaanxi provinces.

The mainland saw the establishment of 453 Taiwan-funded agricultural enterprises in the two years of 2002 and 2003, bringing the total number to 4,609 by the end of 2003 with total investment exceeding 3 billion US dollars.

"These enterprises generally operate soundly," Ren said.

She said exchanges and cooperation in agriculture are the most natural and constant of all cross-Straits trade in the past 20 years, bringing great profits to both sides.

Source: Xinhua

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