The Chinese mainland and Taiwan should share development opportunities and construct a common market to realize integrated development.

That was the consensus reached at the recent 14th Cross-straits Economic and Trade Cooperation and Development Forum held in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province.

"Over the past several decades, Taiwan business people have played an important role in cross-Straits cooperation," said Hsü Shu-po, vice chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan.

He added that on one hand Taiwan businessmen brought capital, technologies, talents and advanced management ideas to the Chinese mainland.

On the other hand, the Chinese mainland offered broad development space for Taiwan-funded companies.

Official statistics showed that industrial cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan has improved from low-end to high-end industries and from single to whole industry chain integration, especially in electronic information, the petrochemicals industry and other leading industries in Fujian.

Viewed from the perspective of companies, Chinese mainland companies have seen enhanced management strength and R&D capacity while their Taiwan counterparts are faced with rigid management, high labor costs and poorer R&D capacity.

Experts said that in other words, cross-Straits economic cooperation has transformed from being a complementary to integrated cooperation.

The organizers said that all the attendees at the forum agreed that so long as companies made good use of the Chinese mainland's preferential business environment and opportunities, such a transformation would further uplift the social and economic integration between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

According to the Department of Commerce of Fujian province, the accumulated utilization of Taiwan investment in the province now exceeds $30 billion.

More than 50 Top 100 Taiwan companies and 22 Taiwan financial institutions have settled in Fujian to date.