The Huaqiao International Service Business Park and Taiwan External Trade Development Council created a “cross-strait trade zone” to promote cross-strait business and trade cooperation and to provide an integrated and advanced exposition platform equipped with the newest modern facilities.

“Taiwan Week in Kunshan China 2009” will be launched this September to convert the “cross-strait trade zone” into the top platform for Taiwan enterprises and commodities.

More than 3300 Taiwanese enterprises with a combined investment of $32.6 billion have settled in Kunshan, located in central China’s Jiangsu Province. Their total amount of cross-strait trade is no less than $30 billion. Not only do these enterprises manufacture electronic products, precision machinery and daily commodities, but they are also engaged in logistics, agriculture, food and beverage.

Located in the area west of the Huaqiao International Service Business Park, this “cross-strait trade zone” is designed to contain four centres involved mainly in logistics, R&D, finance, and Telecom services, as well as other necessary facilities for living and leisure to meet the Taiwanese enterprises’ and businessmen’s practical demands.

The logistics centre will consist of three separate sections for trade, exposition, and storage, providing the integrated services of wholesales, retails, expositions, logistics, and storage for cross-strait commodities.

The R&D centre will introduce think tanks and training institutes from renowned universities and research organizations from home and abroad, helping to upgrade the technologies and talents in Taiwan enterprises at Huaqiao.

The finance centre will provide capital support for Taiwanese enterprises and will establish branches of banks to deal with deposits, loans, exchanges, and credit cards for them.

The telecom service centre will attract Taiwan telecom providers to supply a value-added service on data for the people around the world.

The development plan for the “cross-strait trade zone”, designed by Japan’s Nomura Research Institute, has been under verification. The first phase of basic infrastructure construction has already kicked off. As of now, a 140,000 square meters logistics centre has been put into operation. An 80,000 square meters exposition and trade zone is under decoration, and a 100,000 square meters trade centre for the electronic products from Taiwan will be open in October.

By Xie Fang