State Councilor Wu Yi urged trade officials to enhance trade ties with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan at the National Conference on Foreign Trade, which opened in Beijing on December 22.

In the wake of Macao's return to the motherland, Wu said, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation should assume an active role in creating the establishment of an official system to handle trade cooperation with Macao, further tighten its economic ties with the mainland, and boost the local economy.

The first meeting of the Mainland-Hong Kong Joint Committee on Commerce and Trade was successfully convened in November, Wu said, signifying a formal start of high-level exchanges and contacts between trade authorities of the mainland and Hong Kong, and proved conducive to the smooth development of mainland-Hong Kong trade relations.

The trade and economic links between the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao, Wu added, are those between a state and its individual tariff zones.

Thus, she pointed out, the state should provide the necessary support for Hong Kong and Macao businesspeople who are in the mainland for trade, investment and scientific cooperation, in accordance with international trade practices and the principle of "priority over peers, and appropriate preference."

Wu urged trade officials attending the conference to vigorously broaden exports to the two Special Administrative Regions, transit trade through them, and energize efforts to attract Hong Kong and Macao investment in the mainland.

Scientific cooperation should be viewed as a new growth point in trade and economic cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao, while cooperation in information, biological, and new-materials technologies should also be enlarged, Wu said.

She pointed out that trade relations between Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan have become an important and special part of cross- Straits relations, and that the mainland should make use of Hong Kong and Macao's advantages to strengthen its trade links with Taiwan, and create conditions for eventually realizing the peaceful reunification of China. (Xinhua)