A Chinese mainland official has urged the Taiwan authorities to reciprocate investment opportunities for mainland insurance companies.

Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Wednesday that the mainland had received applications from three Taiwan insurance companies to do business on the mainland. One has been approved to establish a joint-venture insurance company on the mainland.

The other two applications had been rejected because they failed to meet certain standards, he said.

In contrast, he said, applications of mainland insurance companies to establish representative offices in Taiwan had failed to be approved.

"We hope Taiwan authorities would adopt a pragmatic attitude and consider the reasonable requests of mainland insurance companies to conduct business in Taiwan," said Li.

The imbalance is also reflected in trade across the Taiwan Strait. According to the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Department of China's Ministry of Commerce, Taiwan had 54.11-billion-U.S.-dollar trade surplus with the mainland in the first ten months of the year.

The mainland exported 16.96 billion U.S. dollars worth of products to Taiwan from January to October, while imports from Taiwan totaled 71.07 billion dollars.

Source: Xinhua