A forum aiming to promote economic cooperation and exchanges across the Taiwan Straits is scheduled to be held in Shanghai from September 14 to 16, said a mainland official in Beijing on August 22.

The forum, dubbed a folk "Jingying Forum", will be jointly held by the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Taiwan's People First Party (PFP) as an activity to boost further exchanges and communication between the two parties, said Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee.

As a crucial step towards the implementation of the communique issued by General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao and PFP chairman James Soong on May 12, 2005, the forum will positively push relations across the Taiwan Straits towards peaceful and stable development, said Chen at a meeting with a PFP delegation.

More than 100 experts, scholars and entrepreneurs across the Straits will be invited to the forum to give advice in carrying out the consensus reached by the two party leaders in May, he said.

Source: Xinhua