By Dai Yan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-24 11:38

Xiamen, a port city in East China's Fujian Province, is to hold a forum on cross-Straits agricultural products trade from August 29 to 31, 2007, aiming to promote cross-Straits agricultural cooperation and create a win-win situation.

The forum is jointly organized by Xiamen Cross-Straits Agricultural Cooperation and Communication Association and the Tainan County Farmer's Association in Taiwan Province. It will welcome more than 400 people from Taiwan, including government officials, scholars and farmers, and over 380 agricultural products dealers, investment seekers, scholars and government officials on the Chinese mainland.

The three-day forum will focus on providing policy consultation service for Taiwan farmers to help them with better knowledge of the central government's latest policies on agricultural products from Taiwan, said an official with the Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Agriculture.

Attendants will discuss in three seminars how to expand cross-Straits agricultural products trade and facilitate cross-Straits fishery and modern agriculture cooperation. The forum will also build platforms for promoting Taiwanese agricultural products and inviting investment in Xiamen from Taiwan.

Xiamen, less than 370 kilometers from the west coast of Taiwan, has always played a significant role in cross-Straits communication. After the central government allowed duty-free import of some agricultural products from Taiwan to the mainland in 2005, Xiamen began actively constructing the largest Taiwanese fruit collecting and distributing center on the mainland.

According to statistics, agricultural products trade volume between Xiamen and Taiwan totaled US$21.75 million last year, an increase of 36 percent year-on-year and 201 percent compared with 2002. Xiamen Port imported 725.9 tons of fruit from Taiwan during the first five months of 2007, worth US$593,000, up from 481 tons and US$586,000 respectively in 2006.

To help expand cross-Straits agricultural cooperation, Xiamen will be engaged in building itself a distribution center for agricultural products from and to Taiwan, a cross-Straits agricultural technology cooperation platform, and an aquatic products logistics platform.