President Ma Ying-jeou has set a target of eventually luring 1 million Chinese tourists a year to Taiwan.

Charter flights are now limited to four annual Chinese holidays, when they are packed with Taiwanese residents on the mainland returning home to visit family.

Ma wants to gradually expand the charter schedule and supplement it with regularly scheduled flights by the summer of 2009 to meet the needs of people traveling across the strait by bypassing unnecessary transit stopover in Hong Kong or other third cities.

An estimated half a million people from Taiwan now live or work in China with extensive capital investments.

China has already absorbed more than US$100 billion in Taiwanese investment over the past 15 years.

An additional number of more than 1 million of Taiwanese visit their kin or the wide varieties of scenic spots on the mainland.

The number of Taiwan residents currently attending higher educational institutions is also on the increase.

Ma won the presidential election in March largely on his promises to fight domestic corruption and reinvigorate Taiwan's economy by hitching the island's wagon to China's economic juggernaut.

Chiang's delegation is seen as the first concrete step in fulfilling that pledge.

It is expected that the two top negotiators will sign agreements following the talks to launch the cross-strait weekend direct charter flights and for visits by Chinese tourists to Taiwan in early July. 

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