Beijing - China pledged to expand links in entertainment and education with Taiwan on Saturday as the two sides held their fifth cross-Strait economic, trade and cultural forum. Cai Wu, China's minister of culture, said officials were devising policies to encourage the development of Taiwan-based entertainment businesses in China.
China will permit Taiwan companies to run performance venues and brokers in the entertainment industry will be allowed to set up branches, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Cai as saying.
Tian Jin, China's top official for film and broadcasting, said Taiwanese cable TV networks will be able to provide information services for cable TV facilities in the south-eastern province of Fujian, which lies close to Taiwan.
Regulators also plan to allow companies and individuals from Taiwan to "cooperate with mainland businesses in movie shooting, movie theatre construction and renovation, and mainland movie distribution", the agency quoted Tian as saying.
China will also develop "test zones" for cross-Strait cooperation in publishing in several provinces and cities, it said.
Mainland Chinese universities will accept students with outstanding grades in Taiwan's college entrance examinations, the agency said.
The offer came as both sides stressed the importance of the two- day forum in building on a recent warming in ties.
Wang Yi, head of the Taiwan Work Office of China's ruling Communist Party, said holding the forum in the southern Chinese city of Changsha was "in line with the common aspirations of people in the mainland and Taiwan."
Wu Poh-hsiung - chairman of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT) - said such exchanges played a "key role in making further and substantial breakthroughs in mainland-Taiwan relations."
State media quoted Wu as saying the forum was of "historic and practical significance."
Jia Qinglin, one of the Communist Party's senior leaders, urged people on both sides to "contribute to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," the agency said.
Jia said the delegates should "maintain their shared Chinese cultural inheritance, cement spiritual ties, strengthen their sense of identity to the Chinese nation and work together to promote the international influence of the Chinese culture."
About 530 politicians, scholars and business people are attending the two-day forum, including about 270 from Taiwan.
Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) refused to send delegates to Changsha, criticizing the forum as another move toward unification between China and Taiwan.
"The KMT wants Taiwan and China to jointly compile a Chinese language dictionary, and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] announced that Beijing will allow Taiwan students to attend Chinese universities," DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan said in Taipei.
"This will give people the impression that the two sides are moving toward cultural unification," Cheng argued.
Cheng said the DPP would discipline two DPP members who are attending the forum despite the party's ban on participation.
The forum was first held in Beijing after a visit to China by former KMT chairman Lien Chan in 2005.
Taiwan and China had been rivals since they split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
