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Taiwan, mainland to launch historic weekend flights

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-03 13:03

Taiwan and the mainland will launch direct weekend charter flights on Friday, potentially letting millions of tourists visit the island in a historic move heralding a further warming of relations.

Thirty-six round-trip routes will open between Taiwan and the mainland. There have been no regular direct flights between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, aside from a few charters on select holidays, since 1949.

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The flights are likely to give a boost to carriers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Top negotiators from the mainland and Taiwan agreed last month to the weekend charter flights. They also decided to let as many as 3,000 mainland tourists a day visit the island.

"It will have positive meaning for relations between the two sides," said Li Peng, assistant Taiwan Research Institute director at Xiamen University. "Exchanges and encounters will increase, helping each side understand the other."

Relations have warmed under Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou, who took office on May 20 after winning a landslide election victory on pledges to revitalise the local economy with stronger mainland trade and transit ties.

Lured by a common language, lower labour costs and a potentially huge consumer market, Taiwan investors have poured an estimated $100 billion into the mainland. About 1 million Taiwanese now live on the mainland.

Seats are still open on many of the July 4 flights, though the maiden trip from Taiwan is sold out and the first flight from the mainland was nearly full as of Wednesday afternoon.

The flights run between Taiwan to the mainland cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Xiamen and back.

Although the routes are dubbed weekend charters, they run Friday through Monday. Only travel agents can sell tickets.

Ma Ying-jeou has said he estimates 50 million mainlanders would want to visit hard-to-reach island.