The Chinese mainland has agreed to buy 1,200 tons of oranges from Taiwan farmers to cushion the problems of oversupply on the island.

A handful of mainland fruit companies and supermarkets on Friday signed a deal in Beijing worth 7 million yuan (886,076 U.S. dollars).

The oranges are expected to enter the Chinese mainland through southeastern Xiamen Port and northern Tianjin Port. They will show up in markets in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Fujian Province before the traditional Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 18 this year.

The deal was initiated by Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the Kuomintang (or Nationalist Party), when he visited the agricultural region of Yunlin and discovered that farmers were struggle to cope with an orange glut.

The Kuomintang asked the mainland to help. Within 30 hours, an emergency purchase plan had been arranged, according to a source close to the deal.

It's not the first time that the Chinese mainland has held out a helping hand to Taiwan farmers worried about fruits surpluses. Last June and October, the mainland bought 500 tons of slow-selling bananas from Taiwan.

Statistics show that Taiwan exported a total of 3,400 tons of fruit to the mainland in 2005, worth 3.22 million U.S. dollars and an increase of 35 percent on 2004.

Over the past decade, many Taiwan farmers have moved to the Chinese mainland to grow the island's tropical fruit, to gain a toehold in the lucrative mainland market.

Source: Xinhua