Taiwan will open two more ports next week for transshipment services with China in a modest goodwill gesture to improve ties and called on Friday on arch-foe Beijing to reciprocation, Chen Ming-tong, told a news conference.
"We look forward to the mainland side to show positive interactions and create a more favourable, the Mainland Affairs Council said.
The expansion aims to skirt a decades-old ban on direct transport links across the Taiwan Strait separating the island from China. The two have been political and military rivals since they split following a 1949 civil war.
"The move will make cargo shipments by sea across the Strait more convenient," the Council's vice chairman environment for direct shipping links across the Strait," Chen said.
Taiwan set up an offshore transshipment centre in the southern port of Kaohsiung in 1997 to allow goods carried by Chinese vessels to be processed in restricted zones outside Taiwan customs for onward international shipment.
The government will widen the transshipment to Taichung in central Taiwan and Keelung in the north, said the Council, which is the cabinet body in charge of formulating policy towards China.
Businessmen and analysts say direct links are essential for Taiwan to remain competitive. Taipei has raised security concerns.
China views the island as a breakaway province that must be reunited, by force if necessary.
Despite often turbulent political ties, Taiwan companies have invested up to $100 billion in the mainland's giant market since the 1980s.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has said negotiations with China on establishing direct links should be resumed after the March presidential election, which he narrowly won.
He has promised to complete the negotiations by the end of this year but there are no signs that Beijing is ready to deal with the pro-independence president.
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