MOEA to Promote Cross-Strait Cooperation for Some Priority Industries in 2010

Taipei, Dec. 14, 2009 (CENS)--The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) will push for cross-Taiwan Strait industrial cooperation in the priority fields of photovoltaic, LED (light emitting diode), communications, and electrical car in 2010.

The plan is part of the "Cross-Strait Industrial Bridging Program," designed by the MOEA, which is meant to serve as a platform for cross-Strait industrial cooperation and attract more investments by multinationals in Taiwan.

Launched in December 2008, the program has a three-year span, focusing on stepped-up exchanges in the first year, cooperative talk in the second year, and substantive cooperation in the third year.

The program will focus on a number of industries in 2010, including photovoltaic, LED lighting, and electric car, on the priority list of the MOEA, and communications, favored by China. Official panels will be set up to push substantial cooperation in this fields and Taiwan also hopes to carry out trial usage of electric cars in some mainland Chinese cities, according to Lin Neng-chuan, deputy executive secretary of the industrial bridging program office and the Department of Industrial Technology, MOEA.

Those industries are selected from the items covered by 11 meetings for cross-Strait industrial exchanges in 2009, held under the auspices of the program, which covered an extensive fields, including Chinese herbal medicine, photovoltaic, auto electronics, communications, LED lighting, information service wind power, logistics service, vehicle, precision machinery, and foodstuff.

Lin reported that in many cases during the meetings in 2009, parties from both sides actually entered talks for industrial cooperation. Both sides will study the formulation of common standards for some specific industries, according to Lin.

Those meetings have brokered business talks among 500 enterprises from both sides of the Strait, cooperation among over 100 enterprises, which have led to the signing of 43 letters of intent for cooperation, and even some substantive cooperative deals, including investment by Solargiga Energy, China's second largest producer of monocrystalline silicon ingot for solar cell, in Kinmac Solar, procurement of Hon Hai's e-reader by China Mobile, joint R&D of TD-SCDMA mobile phone by China Mobile and HTC, and the establishment of a joint-venture sales channel company by Chunghwa Telecom and China Unicom.