Businesses signal intent on cross-Straits deals worth 1b yuan

Letters of intent for deals worth 1 billion yuan ($141.5 million) were signed between businesses on the Chinese mainland and island enterprises on Friday during an online promotion designed to help Taiwan-funded businesses on the mainland expand sales and resume production.

The event was one of a series of online promotions organized by the Association for Economic and Trade Exchanges across the Taiwan Straits to help connect enterprises on the two sides and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants introduced their products through livestreaming, with their contact information shown on the screen, and potential buyers and sellers could negotiate online. One hundred Taiwan enterprises and more than 200 mainland enterprises participated, with the number of simultaneous viewers online exceeding 5,000, according to the organizer.

Wang Bingnan, vice-minister of commerce, said the business environment on the mainland continues to improve, and the huge market of 1.4 billion people will provide space for the development of Taiwan-funded enterprises.

The mainland supports island enterprises looking to expand their domestic market and deepen integration with the mainland, he said.

Trade volume across the Straits from January to May increased by 5.6 percent year-on-year, and Taiwan's sales to the mainland and Hong Kong in May accounted for 44.9 percent of its total sales outside the island, a new high, data from the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office show.

"This shows the economic cooperation between the two sides is irreversible," said Pei Jinjia, deputy director of the office.

Taiwan-funded enterprises should keep up with high-quality development, make good use of online sales platforms, and promote domestic sales, he said.

Li Cheng-hung, director of the Association of Taiwan Enterprises on the Mainland, said the activity is an innovation.

"It provides a platform for businesses of the two sides to communicate directly," Li said.

Taiwan-funded enterprises faced great difficulties this year due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the grim global economic situation and complex and unstable cross-Straits relations, but the measures and policies offered by the mainland have given them confidence, he said.

On Friday, Want Want Group, a snack and beverages producer from Taiwan, signed a cooperation deal worth 38 million yuan with a supermarket chain from Fujian province to supply its products for a year.

Lin Tian-liang, a representative of the group's Beijing office, said many Taiwan businesses had previously been mainly engaged in export sales and had few domestic sales channels on the mainland, and the event helped them to connect with mainland retailers.