A showroom of Samsung Electronics in Seoul in 2009. A huge Chinese delegation flew to Taipei Monday to seal 5.3 billion US dollars worth of contracts to buy flat screens, an official said.
A huge Chinese delegation flew to Taipei Monday to seal 5.3 billion US dollars worth of contracts to buy flat screens, an official said.
The sales will amount to a rise of 56 percent from a year ago, when the island shipped 3.4 billion US dollars worth of flat panels -- used in the manufacture of televisions and monitors -- to the mainland due to a parts shortage.
"They are here to work out details of the draft contracts guaranteed earlier this year," Huang Wen-jung of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council told AFP.
"This is a big deal and important to the local liquid crystal display (LCD) makers."
China had said its trade delegations to Taiwan last year spent 14 billion dollars, shielding the island from the full impact of the financial crisis.
It the first shopping trip by Chinese businessmen after negotiators from Taipei and Beijing signed an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing late last month.
The pact, by far the most sweeping between the two sides, marks the culmination of President Ma Ying-jeou's Beijing-friendly policy, introduced after he assumed power in 2008.
Beijing still regards Taiwan part of its territory although the island has governed itself since 1949 at the end of a civil war.
(c) 2010 AFP
