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Chinese tycoons seek investment in Taiwan property market

By ANNIE HUANG,Associated Press Writer AP - Tuesday, April 22

TAOYUAN, Taiwan - A group of Chinese property tycoons toured Taiwan on Tuesday as island trade authorities began a new effort to woo major investments from its giant neighbor.

The property developers were the first mainland group to visit Taiwan since Ma Ying-jeou was elected president on March 22 on a platform of jump-starting the island's stalled economy by boosting trade ties with Beijing.

Included in the group are a number of self-made billionaires who have cashed in on China's breakneck economic growth over the past decade.

They say they will look into leisure and tourism investments in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists flocking to the island.

"This is a trip of exploration," said Liu Changle, a developer and chairman of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television. "Taiwan has an important property market in the Greater China and Asian region."

Sites on the group's itinerary include a 46 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$1.5 billion; €1 billion) commercial-leisure complex in the central city of Taichung and a NT$10 billion (US$330 million; €210million) yachting-theme park complex near a bay in southern city of Pingtung.

Ma's China program _ touted during his presidential campaign _ includes increasing annual Chinese tourist flows to Taiwan from the current level of 80,000 to one million and direct flights across the 160-kilometer-wide (100-mile-wide) Taiwan Strait.

Those goals were endorsed by Chinese President Hu Jintao during a breakthrough meeting with Taiwan's incoming vice president earlier this month on the Chinese island of Hainan.

Group member Pan Shiyi of Soho China said the prospect of thousands of new Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan makes the island an especially alluring target for hotel and other leisure-related investments.

"We have 1.3 billion Chinese," he said. "If they can get here by direct flights ... I think there will be a lot of interest in that."

Aside from holiday charters, direct flights across the Taiwan Strait have been banned since China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.

China continues to claim Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened war if it moves to make its de facto independence permanent.

Ma, who takes office May 20, is seeking to expand the existing holiday charters to weekends and launch regularly scheduled flights during the second half of 2009.

In contrast to Ma, outgoing President Chen Shui-bian has consistently discouraged closer trade ties with China. The pro-independence Chen maintains that increasing economic dependence on the mainland would limit Taiwan's room for maneuver in the event of any future political confrontation.

Despite Chen's go-slow China trade policies, economic ties between China and Taiwan are already flourishing. Taiwanese companies have invested more than US$100 billion on the mainland, and bilateral trade in 2007 exceeded US$80 billion _ made up mostly of Taiwanese exports.

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