With increased openness along the China/Taiwan border, Taiwan is now the third largest investor in one of China's richest provinces.

 

Below is an article published by Focus Taiwan:

Taiwan's top negotiator with China, Chiang Pin-kung, reiterated Monday [date] that a proposed Taiwan-China economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) is the main focus of talks between the two sides this year.

Since the opening of cross-Taiwan Strait transportation links, talks between Taiwan and China have been concentrated on trade, said the chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) , a semi-official inermediary body tasked with handling cross-strait exchanges in the absence of formal ties.

With more and more people traveling between Taiwan and China, the opportunities for cross-strait trade have increased and it is therefore important that the two sides sign the trade pact, Chiang said in a meeting with the Deputy Provincial Governor of China's Sandong Province Cai Limin.

Noting that there have been frequent exchanges between Sandong and Taiwan, Chiang told a visiting delegation headed by Cai that since 2008, he has hosted 22 different groups from Sandong.

For his part, Cai noted that Sandong is China's second largest province in terms of the population with 94.7 million people, and the third largest in terms of economic aggregates, after Guangdong and Jiangsu.

The provincial government has approved over 7,800 applications by Taiwanese investors to set up business in the province, and to date, 4,490 Taiwanese businesses have opened there, Cai said.

Taiwan investment in those businesses is US$16.1 billion, which puts Taiwan in third spot behind Hong Kong and South Korea as the largest foreign investor in Sandong, he said.