Beijing Wednesday agreed to consider a proposed plan to operate
freight charter flights across the
Taiwan
Straits in a bid to help Taiwanese investors reduce the economic
damage caused by SARS.
Li
Weiyi, spokesman with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State
Council, said the mainland is willing to facilitate any move that
benefits business circles on the island, as well as cross-Straits
economic exchanges.
The scheme to launch charter cargo flights was recently proposed by
some Taiwanese "legislators'' as strict quarantine measures on both
sides of the Straits have hindered logistics flow for an increasing
number of Taiwanese-funded enterprises on the mainland.
The plan was aimed at improving the supply of goods for these firms
by shortening delivery times.
Due to Taipei's decades-old ban on the three direct links -- trade,
transport and postal services -- across the Straits, delivery of
goods, whether by air or sea freight, have to be made via a third
destination, usually Hong Kong and Macao.
Li
hinted that the mainland will adopt concrete measures to ensure the
proposed programme can be smoothly put in place.
"We suggest that non-governmental industrial associations and
airlines on both sides of the Straits should first communicate with
each other and reach agreement on related issues,'' the spokesman
told a regular press conference.
If
implemented, the charter freight flight programme would signal
another landmark move in cross-Straits relations, following the
successful operation of the first charter passenger flights between
Taiwan and the mainland during this year's Spring Festival
holidays.
Between January 26 and February 10, six Taiwanese airlines operated
a total of 16 indirect charter flights to and from the mainland for
the first time in 54 years, although they were required to make a
brief stopover in Hong Kong or Macao.
At
the press briefing, Li also said the SARS outbreak had had a
limited impact on cross-Straits economic and trade ties, especially
Taiwanese investment on the mainland.
Citing statistics from Taiwan's economic administrators, Li said
Taiwanese investors injected a total of US$1.417 billion into the
mainland in the first four months of this year, a year-on-year jump
of 73.62 per cent.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese investment on the mainland in April alone rose
by 22.5 per cent year on year.
Li
stressed that the economic fallout of SARS is short-term and the
mainland economy will sustain a fast, healthy and stable
development in the long term.
"So we believe that Taiwanese investors will not weaken their
confidence in investing in the mainland and their investments will
gain a momentum as long as the disease outbreak is brought under
control,'' he told reporters.
Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce suggested that
cross-Straits trade volume increased by 39 per cent to reach
US$12.12 billion in the first quarter of this year.
By
the end of March, the mainland had attracted Taiwanese investment
of about US$34 billion in more than 56,000 projects.
(China Daily May 29, 2003)