Cross-strait airfares to be cut in bid to boost travel
Cross-strait airfares would be slashed by 10 to 15 per cent as authorities on the mainland and in Taiwan moved to boost already booming bilateral tourism, the mainland's aviation chief said yesterday.
The announcement was made at a weeklong cross-strait forum, where the mainland's top political adviser, Jia Qinglin, appealed for mainland tourists to travel farther south on the island and befriend locals, who are mostly supporters of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.
Li Jiaxiang, director of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), said at the forum in Xiamen, Fujian , that mainland authorities would build four new airports and renovate four others in the West Strait Economic District - a group of 21 mainland cities close to Taiwan - in the next five years, Xinhua reported.
Passengers would be able to take direct flights between Xiamen, the mainland's closest city to Taiwan, to the breakaway island soon as preparation was under way, Li added.
'Significant progress has been made in cross-strait exchanges. Now the obstacles [of cross-strait relations] are more related to emotional issues,' he said.
Cross-strait flights would be raised to 420 per week - 60 per day - from 380 currently, Li said.
This will be the second increase since late May, when the number of direct flights was lifted from 270 to meet growing demand from mainland tourists and Taiwanese investors doing business on the mainland.
Riding on booming cross-strait economic and tourism co-operation in recent years, Beijing announced last month a spate of measures to boost travel across the strait, which included helping residents on both sides to obtain travel documents. Beijing expects more than one million mainland tourists to visit Taiwan this year, up from 606,000 last year.
In opening remarks at the forum in Xiamen yesterday, Jia, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, cited grass-roots exchanges as the most dynamic part of cross-strait relations.
He suggested mainland residents go 'to all parts of Taiwan, especially those in the middle and southern parts of the island, [and] ... candidly befriend the people in those areas and earnestly listen to their Taiwanese compatriots' thoughts'.
The southern part of Taiwan has long been the stronghold of its pro-independence movement.
In October 2008, Zhang Mingqing, deputy head of the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, was shoved to the ground by a city councillor from the pro-independence DPP in Tainan during a visit to pave the way for a landmark trip by Arats head Chen Yunlin the next month.
Jia said yesterday that cross-strait exchanges should be free of partisanship and should be expanded to cities, counties, towns and schools.
'So far, a lot of Taiwanese compatriots have yet to visit the mainland. We wholeheartedly welcome them to come and have a look,' he said.
Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council, said at the forum that 'concrete progress' had been made in the negotiations for the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement.
The controversial agreement, expected to be signed later this year, has sparked fears such as a possible influx of cheaper goods and labour from the mainland, stifling traditional industries while benefiting large firms. Some are also worried about an annexation of Taiwan by the mainland.
But the Taiwanese government - under the control of the Kuomintang Party and President Ma Ying-jeou - said 260,000 jobs would be created under the agreement.
