The two-day First Cross-Straits Elites Forum, with participants from China's mainland and Taiwan, came to an end in Shanghai Friday, with a "Joint Proposal" calling for further promoting cross-straits economic exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past two days, experts, scholars and business people from the two sides exchanged their views on cross-straits economic relations and cooperation at the forum, which was sponsored by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People First Party (PFP).

Jia Qinglin, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, and James Soong, chairman of the PFP, expressed the two parties' determination and sincerity in promoting steady development of the cross-straits development.

Li Bingcai, deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee, said, in a speech at the closing ceremony, the participants had reached consensus in five aspects, urging the two sides to seize opportunities and face challenges to open up a new phase of achieving common economic development and mutually beneficial coexistence.

The forum was aimed at implementing the consensus in a communique signed after the talk on May 12 between the CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao and PFP Chairman James Soong.

Source: Xinhua