President Ma Ying-jeou made the pledge of continuing to relax economic regulations to enable enterprises to expand international operations with sustainable development and growth.

He made the remarks in an address delivered to the annual conference of the Asia Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce, a trade union for Taiwan businesses based and operating around the Asia-Pacific region, yesterday.

"Open and relaxed economic policies are the key strategies in making Taiwan an operations hub for local enterprises based in China and all other parts of the world," the president said.

He explained that his policy of easy restrictions on economic interchange with China is never intended to encourage Taiwan enterprises to increase investments in China, but rather to give them a large space for greater success.

"The current framework of economic regulations, tax system and tax rates must all be eased to a level at which local companies can become more competitive internationally," Ma said.

Reaffirming his determination to stick to his liberalization policy, Ma said his administration will not intervene in the decisions made by local businesses concerning operating overseas or where to invest.

"When making sound and profitable investment decisions, you (business stakeholders) know better than us (the government)," he told the business and industry leaders at the meeting.

Ma indicated that the government's role in promoting economic development is mainly to improve the investment environment for companies to help them compete with their counterparts around the world.

To improve business conditions for Taiwan's companies based in China, the president said future negotiations with China will address new and improved direct cross-strait transportation services.

Following the launch of the weekend direct charter flights on July 4 and the opening of up to 3,000 inbound Chinese tourists per day on July 18, Ma indicated that those charter flights will be made more efficient by flying the shortest possible distance across the Taiwan Strait.

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