The Cabinet approved yesterday a proposal submitted by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to relax the rules on visits to China by elected mayors and county chiefs in Taiwan effective immediately.

Under the relaxed regulations, local city mayors and county magistrates are now permitted to engage in bilateral exchanges on affairs at municipal or county levels with counterparts in China.

The application procedure to gain MAC approval will be shortened to one week from three weeks, as in the past.

Prior to the revisions, previous administrations allowed local government chiefs to attend only international events in China.

Taichung City Mayor Jason Hu will lead a delegation formed by Taichung County Magistrate Huang Chung-sheng, Changhua County Magistrate Cho Po-yuan, and Nantou Vice Magistrate Chen Chih-ching to fly to Xiamen in China's southeastern Fujian Province.

They will attend a symposium on cooperation between Xiamen and central Taiwan area for economic and trade development July 4-7.

They will be Taiwan's first local government chiefs to travel to China directly from the airport in Taichung in central Taiwan.

Magistrate Wang Chien-fa of the offshore Penghu County will embark today on a direct charter flight for religious interchanges in China.

The officials' direct flights to China mark a turning pointing in the relations between Taiwan and China.

There have been no direct cross-strait transportation air links since 1949, when Taiwan split from China following the Chinese civil war.

Vice Minister of Interior Lai Wei-feng told reporters following a weekly Cabinet meeting that Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chih-fen was also approved by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) for a visit to China.

Su will take direct flight to Beijing to promote agricultural exports to the Chinese market July 12-19.

Hu, a former foreign affairs minister and Cabinet spokesman thanked Premier Liu Chao-shiuan for the decision to relax the rules and remove unnecessary restrictions in time.

Taking advantage of the inauguration of the two-way non-stop charter flights, more than 700 tourists from China are scheduled to land at Taipei Songshan Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in northern Taiwan today.

They will take the maiden cross-strait weekend charters operated by Chinese carriers.

Taiwan's admission of more Chinese for package tours will officially start July 18.

A ceiling quota of 3,000 Chinese visitors a day for the current stage was set at bilateral talks.

Speaking following the weekly Executive Yuan meeting, Premier Liu thanked the relevant government agency personnel -- those in charge of quarantine control, customs clearance and public order at airports -- for their hard work to accommodate larger numbers of Chinese tourists.

Liu encouraged members of the public to join the government's efforts to promote Taiwan as a popular tourist market.

He promised that the central government will help offer the Chinese visitors the same high-end service as that extended to tourists from other countries.

The premier also asked relevant government agencies to quickly deal with any incidents related to Chinese tourists as the first important step toward building sustainable growth of Taiwan's tourism.

The nonstop charters between Taiwan and China on weekends and raising the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan were among the major breakthroughs in the relations across the Taiwan Strait after the May 20 inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou.